The ending of Joker is one of the elements of the film that has provided us with some of the most controversial theories and speculations. Did everything happen in the imagination of Arthur Fleck? How much of what we saw is true and how much is a lie? These are valid questions that many fans have asked themselves after the premiere. However, Kevin Smith found out that there was a darker ending in mind that was discarded from the final cut.
During the Fatman on Batman program, the director of Clerks said that a source in the entertainment business told him about an alternate ending to Joker that did not reach the cinema and is worthy of contemplating for those die-hard fans.
According to Smith, this supposed finale which was discarded was also planned to take place in the psychiatric hospital, but instead of killing the psychiatrist, Arthur Fleck was supposed to laugh after telling his story. After that the psychiatrist was to ask him why he was laughing, to which Arthur would have answered that “he was thinking of something funny.”
Accordingly, the sequence would give way to a flashback to the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne, where it would be revealed that Arthur Fleck was the murderer and before leaving the crime scene the Joker was also going to kill Bruce Wayne.
“Originally, the ending in the hospital was different,” Smith alleged. “He’s in the hospital and he laughs, chuckles, and he says, ‘I was just thinkin’ of something funny’.
“What was supposed to happen was you flashed back to the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne, and it was him [Joker] killing Thomas and Martha Wayne and the boy was screaming and crying and he turned to walk away and he turned back, shrugged, and shot the kid. Credits.”
Of course, although Smith says he has a reliable source, this might be nothing more than a rumor and the director himself worries that he does not know whether it is true and does not know at what point in the production this supposed idea was ruled out.
However, if this rumor is accurate, it would have made for an entirely new and alternate universe of Gotham. One that might have been linked to a completely rated R version of villain and superhero movies.
Joker’ arrived at the movie theaters on August 31, of last year. Days before it received the Golden Lion award as the best film at the Venice Film Festival, which raised expectations regarding this film. This film is not inside the so-called DC Cinematic Universe, it is a new version of the iconic villain.
You can see Smith’s statements in the following video:
