Thanks to CHUD.com I was pointed in the direction of a blog called BetterthanFudge where the site’s blogger Josh Horowitz had a chance to sit down with Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan in promotion of his new film The Prestige and talk a little about the upcoming Batman sequel The Dark Knight.
The teaser doesn’t give us a ton as the majority of the interview is being saved for publication in Mean Magazine, but on top of hearing that “The title has been chosen very specifically. It’s quite important to the film,” we also learn a little about the Joker character. Here is what was posted:
I take it [the Joker] will be less Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson than the Joker we saw portrayed in a comic like The Killing Joke?
Nolan: Yes. I would certainly point to The Killing Joke but I also would point very much to the first two appearances of the Joker in the comic. If you look at where the Joker comes from there’s a very clear direction that fits what we’re doing very well.
For one I am happy to hear the Joker will be something other than what we have seen on screen before, but this is actually what I expected based on the nature of the first film.
“The Kiling Joke” was a Batman comic from Alan Moore (“Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta”), Brian Bolland and John Higgins. You can buy it right here and it is described by Booklist as “a genuinely chilling portrayal of Batman’s greatest foe, the Joker, as a dangerous madman rather than a nettlesome clown.” Sounds like we are on the right track.
