#Is Barry Keoghan Playing Iconic Villain in The Batman?

The Batman is jam packed with some classic villains from the history of the Dark Knight of Gotham, and thanks to a seemingly accidental post by the brother of Barry Keoghan, there could be another one to add to the roster that includes the Riddler, Carmine Falcone, Catwoman and the Penguin. While you would be forgiven for thinking that there surely isn’t room for any more adversaries to appear in Matt Reeves, this rumor – which is at the moment just that – suggests that maybe just one more has been squeezed in for good measure. If you don’t want to know what was said in the now-deleted exchange, then you know what to do. While this is unconfirmed, beware of potential SPOILERS AHEAD, should the rumors turn out to be true.

While Barry Keoghan is currently in cinemas as part of Marvel’s Eternals team playing mind-controlling Druig, back in 2020 the Irish actor was confirmed as being part of the cast of the upcoming Robert Pattinson DC movie The Batman. At the time, Warner Bros. announced that the star will be playing Stanley Merkel, an officer in the Gotham City Police Department who originally appeared in a 1987 Batman story as the partner of Jim Gordon. In comic book canon, Merkel met an end at the hands of Sofia Falcone aka Hangman. It looks like his character could be taken in a different direction to his on-the-page counterpart in The Batman if it turns out that he is to become, according to the actor’s brother Eric Keoghan, none other than the Joker.

The since-erased text read, “So it’s finally out My Brother playing the JOKER in the new Batman Unreal Stuff.” The post was made in response to a rumor claiming that Keoghan will be taking on the role of the Joker in the film, and it is not the first time such a rumor has been made. In fact, there has been evidence seen in the trailers for the movie that the Joker is a presence in Gotham, and the real question is when in the movie will he appear. Could it be just a few moments at the end as a lead-in to the sequel that is destined to follow, which would almost mirror the Joker tease made at the end of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, or will he have a more prominent presence?

There has been more than one suggestion that the character we have been led to believe is the Riddler will actually turn out be a red herring, as so far the trailers have been careful not to give a look at the face of the main villain of The Batman, so there is still a hanging question over whether the ambiguity of the character’s appearance is significant to the secrets being kept by the movie. After all, despite now having numerous bits of footage to go on, there is still a lot of unknowns to be revealed, and it looks like no one is planning on giving them away before the film makes its debut in March next year.

Robert Pattinson’s take on the Caped Crusader is shaping up to be a worthy addition to the Batman legacy, and takes Bruce Wayne and his crime-fighting alter ego back to his detective roots and strips away a lot of the glitz and gadgets that came to be a trademark of most of the previous Batman movies, including Ben Affleck’s DCEU version, who at one point in time was meant to taking the lead in his own solo movie, which eventually turned into The Batman.

The Batman has seen numerous delays due to the Covid pandemic, but it will finally debut in theaters on March 4th, 2022. This story came to us from CBR.com.

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