Yes, That Was Exactly Who You Think It Was in 'The Batman' Ending

If you were one of the filmgoers who made it the nearly three hours it took to reach the end of The Batman, you were treated to a particularly giggly cameo before the screen faded to black.

After Batman and Catwoman (sadly) part ways, we zoom over to Arkham Asylum—AKA the psychiatric hospital that houses a rather large quantity Gotham City's villains—where the Riddler is having another temper tantrum, because his plan to flood the city didn't really work out. Suddenly? The Riddler gets his first friend. From a neighboring cell, we hear a voice call out to our villain. “What is it they say?” the mysterious character asks. “One day you’re on top. The next, you’re a clown.” The two chat for a second, before descending into shared maniacal laughter.

Now, if you figured that the mention of a clown, followed by a bunch of ha-ha-has, meant that we just met the Joker to Robert Pattinson's Batman, then you're exactly right. In an interview with Variety, Matt Reeves, the director of The Batman, confirmed, “You’re right. It is the Joker.”

The Joker, as was widely speculated prior to The Batman's release, was brought to maddening life by none other than Barry Keoghan, who previously starred in Marvel's Eternals. In an interview with our friends over at Esquire Middle East, Keoghan opened up about shooting the scene alongside Paul Dano, who plays the Riddler. "Paul is–I’m a huge, huge fan of Paul," Keoghan said. "He’s such a good dude as well. I’ve watched all of his movies, like Prisoners and stuff like that. People say that we’re kind of alike as well, and I’m like, are we?" The actor added that "getting to be part of the Batman universe is [a huge deal for me]. I’m a fanboy of these movies, and especially the Batman universe. So be to be in that world, I’m still pinching myself."

Now, you'd think that the Joker's inclusion at the end of the film would suggest that Pattinson will square off against Keoghan in The Batman 2. Not so fast. “It’s not an Easter egg scene,” Reeves said elsewhere. “It’s not one of those end credits Marvel or DC scenes where it’s going, like, ‘Hey, here’s the next movie!’ In fact, I have no idea when or if we would return to that character in the movies.”

Now, Reeves has been teasing a potential HBO Max series that would focus solely on the villains of Arkham Asylum, which he teased in that same Variety interview. "There are things we’ve talked about there," he said. "So it’s very possible. It also isn’t impossible, that there is some story that comes back where Joker comes into our world.”

For now, it seems like we're meant to enjoy Keoghan's Joker cameo for what it was: a cameo. Even though Reeves brushes away the idea of the Joker's return being a sure thing, it's likely that we'll see him again in either The Batman's sequel or an HBO Max spinoff. Plus, we'd like to see more of Dano's Riddler, finally out from under his (quite literally) Saran-wrapped mask. If his reintroduction is alongside the Joker? All the better.

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