Times Online - No more Joker... ever?
Batman: No more Joker ever?
Michael Moran
February 12, 2009
Lester Haines over at The Register is reporting on a new campaign to ban all future cinematic representations of The Joker. The thinking behind The Ultimate Joker initiative is that Heath Ledger nailed Batman’s arch-enemy so perfectly that any attempt to revisit the role must, perforce, end in failure.
I can’t say it’s a position I can agree with: Of the three big-screen Joker efforts so far, Ledger’s is by far the most thrilling, the most sinister, and the most unsettlingly funny. Then again, Cesar Romero and jack Nicholson weren’t really putting up the strongest competition. Romero played the Clown Prince of Crime as a clown first and a criminal second and Jack Nicholson was - as he is in all his films - Jack Nicholson.
Let’s look for comparison at another classic movie character: James Bond. Sean Connery undoubtedly owned the character in a way that might seem to preclude any attempt to replace him. Roger Moore addressed the part with a significantly lighter touch that may not be fashionable to like now, but pulled in respectable box office figures through the 1970s. Dalton and Brosnan made decent fists of the job, without ever quite equalling the all time high that Connery achieved, and people seem to like this new Daniel Craig chap quite a bit. At least enough to give him a chance. Of course all of these performances were constrained by the quality of scripts and direction, for my money the best James Bond film..albeit with the worst James Bond…was On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
The point there is that it may have been unwise to try to beat Connery as Bond, but to take the role in a different direction seems to have worked on a number of occasions. I can’t guarantee that anyone could ever be a better Joker than Heath Ledger, but to never even try strikes me as a rather defeatist attitude.
Anyway, when it comes right down to it Warners will do with their valuable characters trademarks and indicia whatever it takes to make the most profit. In the movie business that means pleasing the most people. Is there a sufficient mass of moviegoers against the ‘reincarnation’ of The Joker to damage the box-office take of a future Batman movie?
I suspect not. If you disagree, be sure to let me know in the comments.
.