Warner Bros. has big plans for Barry Keoghan’s Joker After The Batman (RUMOR)

DC is about to triple its villains. Director Matt Reeves won all the accolades for his fresh new take on the Caped Crusader in 2022’s “The Batman,” but it’s fair to say star Robert Pattinson ended up in the scene of the script’s big bad: Paul Dano’s Riddler with his David Fincher-inspired approach, John Turturro’s sinister mob boss Carmine Falcone, and especially Colin Farrell as the scene-stealing penguin, Oswald Cobb (a character so appealing that he has since become spun off into his own successful “The Penguin” series on HBO) . But don’t forget there was even a last minute tease too another major DC antagonist with Barry Keoghan’s Joker, who received even more screen time in a deleted scene that Warner Bros. dropped shortly after the film’s release. Speculation since then has been that the upcoming “The Batman: Part II” would focus a lot more on Gotham’s famous Clown Prince of Crime, but we’re now getting word that the studio is planning some seriously big things for him in the future.

The rumor comes from The Marvelvision Podcasthosted by film blogger Derek Faraci and former critic Devin Faraci (a reliable source of insider information, but who, it should be noted, has had a controversial past in the film critic community), in their latest episode tied to HBO’s ongoing “The Penguin” series. In a scoop that /Film can independently confirm we’ve heard from our own sources in recent days, Faraci reveals that WB is looking forward to future plans for the Joker — some of which may include a Joker-centric spinoff series that would lead up to a major appearance in third “The Batman” movie. Read on for more details!

The success of “The Penguin” may have more far-reaching effects than we ever thought. As popular as Batman has always been with fans and the general public alike, there’s no doubt that viewers have been drawn to the superhero’s villains time and time again. (It may well have finally run out of steam with the recent flop “Joker: Folie à Deux,” though studio executives certainly hope it was an aberration.) If these latest developments are to be believed, the Joker will making a grand return to the small screen and the big screen in the coming years. In about 21 minutes the latest Marvelvision podcast episodereveals Devin Faraci:

“Apparently Warner Bros. has been talking to Barry Keoghan about his return to ‘The Batman’ franchise, and my understanding is that – I don’t know if he’s in (‘The Batman: Part II’) or not, but he’s the main villain of (‘The Batman: Part III’) And the reason they’re having a real talk about it is because the plan is to do a Joker-oriented series that connects ‘II’ and ‘III’ in the way that as ‘The Penguin’ connects (‘The Batman’) and (‘The Batman: Part II’).”

That said, he immediately cautions that it’s unclear if this will be exactly the same as “The Penguin,” with the Joker positioned as the main character of the series, just like Oz Cobb. Reportedly, this could either be a full-fledged Joker series or, as Faraci puts it, just “a series the Joker is in.” That leaves a lot of wiggle room for WB and Matt Reeves, but this certainly lines up with previous reporting that Reeves was looking to expand the series in a villain-centric direction. Everything can change between now and the release of “The Batman: Part II” (which has been pushed back a full year to 2026), so stay tuned for further updates.