Batman Returns and Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, the latter considered to be one of the worst movies ever.
Batman got another chance on the big screen with Christopher Nolan’s Joker (Heath Ledger).
The Joker was the embodiment of chaos, anarchy, and obsession, made worse by his unpredictability, which made him a very dangerous villain. The Joker’s backstory was left a mystery, with the movie focusing on his work rather than where he came from, to the point where he couldn’t even give a proper explanation on how he got the scars on his face, changing the story every time he told someone about it. However, that wasn’t always the plan for the character, as the studio wanted the Joker to have an origin story, even though in the comic books he doesn’t even have a proper backstory as it keeps changing.
During a Comic-Con @ Home interview, The Dark Knight co-writer David S. Goyer revealed that Warner Bros. wanted the Joker to have an origin story, but they eventually decided to leave his backstory as a mystery. Origin stories for both heroes and villains have become an overused resource in the superhero genre, and there are many examples of movies that don’t need to reveal absolutely everything for the character and the movie to succeed, which is what happened with Ledger’s Joker and The Dark Knight. By leaving his origin story out of the movie, the writers added to the villain’s mystery, unpredictability, and level of danger, as no one knew how he was going to react nor what his next move was going to be.
This also added to the Joker’s unreliability, as he couldn’t even get the story about his scars straight, so he could betray and/or attack anyone at any time with whatever he had nearby. This change in The Dark Knight’s story proves that studios aren’t always right and should trust the writers on how to tell a story, as leaving the Joker’s origins out of the movie benefitted it, and keeping them would have definitely weakened the movie and probably wouldn’t have had the same impact it had.
