May 21 2007The Joker Finally Revealed
If you visit ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com, Warner has set up a site for the Joker's mock campaign for Harvey Dent. Waiting a few moments for the vandalized picture of Dent to fade pixel by pixel rewards you with the first shot of Heath Ledger as The Joker.
I like the grittiness, and it's neat how the scarring curves up. My question: Why so pouty, Joker? For a villain known primarily for a characteristic maniacal grin, he's giving a pretty sensual pout. It's like they got this from Joker's MySpace page. If you squint, you can even see how he probably based his look on a Nightmare Before Christmas hoodie he picked up at Hot Topic. Batman need only follow the sounds of Panic! At The Disco to find his arch-nemesis gently sobbing in his girl jeans.
Reader Comments
1. Lunchbox - May 21, 2007 9:32 AM
i have tio say......i was more impressed with the photoshopped fake picture.
2. Big Nog - May 21, 2007 10:22 AM
creepy as hell. i love it.
3. Dan - May 21, 2007 10:39 AM
Fucking. Brilliant. The only question I have now is this: are they even TRYING to avoid an R rating at this point? Not that I'd mind if they got one, of course...
4. Mac - May 21, 2007 10:59 AM
They definitely nailed the creepy factor with this. But, I don't see him as the "clown prince of crime", more the "dude with the f***ed up face lift".
5. Bob - May 21, 2007 11:03 AM
Eeesh. It looks like he's got a particularly horrible outbreak of herpes...
6. 5-15-9 - May 21, 2007 12:52 PM
It definitely has the mood of The Killing Joke all wrapped up in this one.
Good show, old bean! I have no doubt this will rock out.
Then, see, in the third one, the riddler will have etched a question mark into his face.......with the jagged corner of a metal Jack-in-the-box.
Hardcore!
7. Conor S - May 21, 2007 4:14 PM
It puts the make up on to look purty!
8. uni'tard - May 21, 2007 6:02 PM
awesome awesome awesome
9. John Raide - May 21, 2007 7:11 PM
I think they nailed this. I remember Ledger saying in an interview that this incarnation of the Joker would be more about the madness in his eyes as opposed to bright colours and wacky activities. They definitely nailed what they were going for.
10. Nyck - May 21, 2007 10:34 PM
the site has been replaced with what looks like a black screen that says "Page not found." but if you highlight the screen you will see a series of "Ha's". Well, if you were to copy all those "ha's" into Notepad and do a simple find/replace to get rid of them you get the following message:
s e e Y O u I n D E C e M b E R
We can only assume this means our first trailer for The Dark Knight will be arriving in December, either with The Golden Compass or I Am Legend.
Coming Soon tells us that the company behind this bit of viral marketing is 42 Entertainment and they have just registed the site SeeYouInDecember.com. Now this is actually fun don't yah think?
11. Ed - May 22, 2007 12:40 AM
Thanks for the heads up Nyck. That is awesome.
BTW - This movie will be so kick ass.
12. Nemesis - May 22, 2007 2:55 PM
Looks like Michael Myers with lipstick hahahahahaahah
No for real I like this pick I hope they make him a sick and evil !@#$
This face says Psychopath.
13. Tallon - May 22, 2007 4:18 PM
I'm more leaning towards a FAKE! check out the site.
http://www.totalfilm.com/movie_news/new_heath_ledger_joker_image_might_be_a_fake!
14. AD - May 23, 2007 1:45 AM
Tallon, read their follow-up: http://www.totalfilm.com/movie_news/heath_ledger_joker_image_update
;)
15. Holocron - May 23, 2007 9:34 PM
Yeah, I'm going with fake too...
16. Axeman - May 25, 2007 2:33 PM
This looks absolutly horrible! It only strengthens my distaste for him playing the Joker. Give me a break. Worst looking Joker ever!
17. pissed batman fan - May 30, 2007 10:40 PM
what the fuck!? they bother going through the most genious marketing scheme i ever heard of so that they can show us this peice of crap? YOU ARE ALL IN DENIAL! he's not even fuckin smiling. the joker is suppose to have a face premanantly carved into a hidious mocking smile with yellow teeth that he can never represe. this cowboy fag is eather sleeping or posing for an underwear add in this pick. they tried to make him look like some ghetto clown who can't apply lipstick instead of the clown price or crime. SMILE YOU BASTARD!
mark hamill should have been him. the joker should be older than batman. what a let down.
18. wojo - May 31, 2007 9:50 AM
Thisis the same company (42 Ent.) that did the campaign for NIN's YearZero cd. This should be very very good.
19. Teo - June 3, 2007 1:09 AM
I think I understand what Nolan is going for. This is genius. Like Batman, if one could imagine what happens in real life that could drive a human being to that state and wear a mask jumping around buildingtops, likewise for the Joker, this is just how real life fucked up-ness is, the grittiness of it all and the plain fact that the face of this disturbed soul never smiles. It is the scars that curve upward eerily that makes it look like he's a smiling maniac the whole time.
I guess maybe instead of looking for faithfulness to the comic illustrations, perhaps we could see it such that it was this particular 'person in real life' who inspired the illustrations.
If this picture really turns out to be a fake, moderators please erase this message. hahaha!
20. Quickstrike - June 4, 2007 4:26 PM
I believe this image to be completely accurate (due to the fact that there has been much analysis to the website and the image looks like Heath Ledger), but also I believe this image of the Joker is very "real" As Teo mentioned, Nolan was wanted to make a more realistic Batman (including all characters such as Bruce Wayne's persona vs his Batman persona, Alfred, Lucious, the Scarcrow, etc). I've read that much of this Joker's character comes from the comic "The Killing Joke" which has a much earlier, younger, and more realistic joker. Still a psycho, but also a small time crook that works his way up through various connections. Remember that this will be the first time we see the joker in this Batman universe. Also in regards to the permanent "smile" I think it works in some cases like the Burton movie and some comics, but as a character the Joker is more interesting when he's not always smiling. Look back to the Joker from Justice League and the animated Batman series and you'll see he's more interesting when he gets mad or sarcastically acts sad rather than appearing happy and smiling all the time. Besides, if you've seen Heath Ledger in other movies like 10 Things I Hate About You, you know that he has a crazy big grin which he can easily flash anytime he wants as the Joker, adding that psychotic smile to the character which everyone wants to see. Remember this is just one image, and a teaser image which shows more about this Joker than some people realize.