Joker and Lex Luther have a conversation

The Joker's Oscar Campaign

Joker likes McDonalds better than Burger King

Found at the always entertaining SuperPunch

South Park Nurse Joker

I really think I've lost it

Hellboy Vs. The Joker

I'm such a geek.

New Trailer and New Poster for "The Dark Knight"

New leaked photos from The Dark Knight

Nothing too new, but still cool.

New Dark Knight Trailer Description

The new Dark Knight trailer was shown today at Comic Con in New York today. The trailer is said to be coming out with Iron Man. As if that movie wasn't going to make a ton of money by itself. The description sounds amazing. I can't wait to see the film.

From MTV's Movie Blog

Batman has more to deal with than just the Joker in this summer’s “The Dark Knight,” and now thanks to a top secret new trailer for the film that just screened at NY Comic Con, we’ve gotten our first extended look at his friend and eventual rival, Harvey “Two-Face” Dent.
The brand-new “Dark Knight” trailer was shown to a flabbergasted audience here in New York (Warner Bros. had not announced any plans to show any footage) and though we only got a chance to see it once, there’s an awful lot to chew on in this new glimpse.
- After a breathtaking shot of Batman perched high above Gotham, a voiceover from Heath Ledger’s Joker asks “Where do we begin?” Batman glides through the city.
- “Kill the Batman,” the Joker states to an adjoined meeting of mob bosses, before an explosion is shown and the subsequent showing of a Joker card. This seemingly gels with the suspicion that the Joker is controlling the mob through ransom (after robbing the mob-run bank in the IMAX preview).
- After several shots of Harvey Dent in District Attorney mode, we finally get everyone together as the Joker invades a fancy bash with Bruce Wayne (Christopher Nolan), Alfred (Michael Caine), Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Sadly, the scene wasn’t topped off by the Penguin crashing through the floor on a giant duck.
- “The dawn is coming” says Dent in a voiceover.
- The Joker mutters “Here we go” before walking down a city street blowing stuff up in one particularly awesome scene.
- In one of the most foreboding moments of the trailer, Dent emphatically states “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Harvey Dent, of course, backwardly referencing his future transformation into super-villain “Two-Face.”
- Our eyes may have been playing tricks on us, but it certainly looked like the Joker drops Dawes at some point. The length of said drop is uncertain.
We’ll all know more when the trailer officially hits in two weeks. The clock starts now.

Warner Brothers Tribute to Heath Ledger

www.whysoserious.com

New International Joker Poster from "The Dark Knight"

Update:

This is the new US Poster that has been released to theaters. Very cool.



The Batman poster is really cool, but this Joker one is amazing. I am so going to have to buy this.

The Dark Knight Teaser Poster is Here

HUGE Dark Knight Prologue Spoilers

Here are two spoiler filled reviews of the first six minutes of the upcoming "The Dark Knight" film, that will play in front of "I Am Legend" on IMAX screens next week. Read at your own risk because it reveals a lot, but it sounds amazing. I simply can't wait to see this film.

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1575671/20071203/story.jhtmlhttp://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1575671/20071203/story.jhtml

Dark Knight' Opening Scenes Reveal 'Radical' New Joker

By Josh Horowitz
NEW YORK — If the opening frames of "The Dark Knight" are any indication, Batman will have his hands full come June. The Joker is on the loose, and MTV News has seen just how devilishly maniacal and dangerous he can be.

On Sunday night, a small crowd in New York gathered to watch the first six minutes of director Christopher Nolan's eagerly awaited sequel to "Batman Begins" and, holy extended trailer, the footage did not disappoint. Introduced by the beaming director and displayed on an 80-foot-tall IMAX screen, the opening of the film welcomed Heath Ledger's Joker to the Nolan/Batman universe.

And it was clear from the start, much as you might have loved Jack Nicholson's villain, the purple-clad bad man won't have the time or inclination to dance to Prince this time around. Nolan spoke at length with MTV News immediately prior to and following the special event, clearly proud of his new villain. "I think what Heath is doing is very adventurous," he said. "What he's doing is very radical. It's very much what I wanted. I knew I needed someone really fearless."

The opening sequence — specially filmed in the IMAX format, and set to debut December 14 with prints of "I Am Legend" in theaters — fulfilled a dream for Nolan, who said he had been wanting to shoot in the format for 15 years. "In the finished film, there will be four or five IMAX sequences," Nolan explained. He continued excitedly before the screening: "Everything about doing this in the IMAX format is trying to get that feeling back when I was a little kid when I'd sit in a movie theater and see images that were larger than life. That's what I'm trying to get back to with this material. I felt like introducing the Joker in this way because he's such a huge character [and it] would be a very fun thing to do."

But Nolan also revealed that not all the IMAX scenes will be action-filled. "Some of them are actually quiet scenes which pictorially we thought would be interesting. It's not all the slam-bam scenes," he said.

As the lights dimmed, the first images were revealed, of a gleaming and bright Gotham City. The camera moves in close on a building when suddenly the calm is shattered, quite literally, by a broken window. A group of clown-mask-clad robbers are about to seize a bank. They bicker about the mysterious man who has employed them. "Why do they call him the Joker?" one asks another. It's a refrain almost identical to those rooftop thugs who wonder about the mysterious "bat" in the opening frames of Tim Burton's "Batman."

Soon we are inside the bank as a tense standoff is under way. None of the employees resist, save one played by character-actor extraordinaire William Fichtner. This is a mob bank, we learn, and the wrong place to mess with, even for a group of seasoned criminals.

The controlled heist degenerates into a mess quickly enough, with each of the robbers mysteriously getting taken out. But it's not Batman knocking them off — rather, it's one of the robbers themselves. Just as the final two robbers are set to leave, one pulls a gun on the other. "I bet the Joker told you to kill me as soon as we loaded the cash," he says, clearly with the upper hand.

The eerily calm but playful response comes. "No, no, no. He killed the bus driver."

Before the gun-toting clown can finish asking, "What bus driver?," he is taken out by a school bus crashing into the bank. "School's out. Time to go!" screams the sole survivor of the gang.

All that remains for him is the bank employee (Fichtner) lying at his feet. By now we're pretty sure these are going to be his last words: "The criminals in this town used to believe in things. Honor. Respect. What do you believe in?" He screams it again, louder, "What do you believe in?"

And the mask comes off. The grinning, scarred face of the Joker is revealed at last. His face filled the 8-story-high screen as the clip played. "I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you ...," he said. He pauses on the last word: " ... stranger."

As the Joker made his getaway, the sequence ended, but before the lights returned, the audience was treated to quick tantalizing flashes of the rest of the film. The Joker firing what looks to be an automatic weapon in a city street. Police Commissioner Gordon raising an ax dramatically. Batman whizzing by in his batpod. And finally, Gordon lowering the ax, destroying what we see now was the bat signal. Troubled times clearly await in Gotham. And it's clear who's to blame.

Nolan explained to MTV News that the Joker we meet in "The Dark Knight" is fully formed. Don't look for an origin story here. "To me, the Joker is an absolute," he said. "There are no shades of gray to him — maybe shades of purple. He's unbelievably dark. He bursts in just as he did in the comics."

Though there was no sign of much of the supporting cast in this extended preview, Nolan stressed there's much more to the story. Asked about Aaron Eckhart's Harvey "Two-Face" Dent, the director said "his story is in some ways the backbone of the film. [Bruce Wayne and Harvey] have an interesting relationship. They're friends and rivals."

And what about the caped crusader we left at the end of "Batman Begins"? Nolan explained that "he's a little more sure of himself" in the new film. "We didn't want him sitting around wrestling with the same angst. It's all-new angst," he laughed.

Nolan, who wrapped filming just two weeks ago, said he's shooting for a running time comparable to the first film's 140 minutes. Congratulated on the ambitious slam-bang start to his sequel, MTV News asked if the next six minutes could help but live up to the first. The director smiled and sighed nearly in unison. "That's what I'm working on now."

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/movies/batmanbegins2/006550689.cfm

DARK KNIGHT REVEALED!
First six minutes of new Batman film shown in New York City!

Posted December 3, 2007 9:20 PM

I just saw the Joker.

Tonight, at the Loews IMAX theater on the upper west side of Manhattan, director Chris Nolan debuted the first six minutes of the upcoming “The Dark Knight” movie, a sequel to the Christian Bale-starring, multi-million-dollar-earning “Batman Begins,” to a crowd of about 60 people. Set to swing into theaters July 18, 2008, “Dark Knight” has been hyped for its inclusion of not just one, but two new villains—Two-Face (played by Aaron Eckhart) and the already mentioned, much discussed Joker (played controversially by Heath Ledger).

“I don’t want to bore you,” Nolan joked as he introduced the clip, which will play in select IMAX theaters prior to “I AM Legend” next weekend and was lifted directly from the film. Nolan went on to explain that “Dark Knight” marks the first time a major motion picture utilized the IMAX filming technique.

“I wanted to make the Joker’s introduction a mini film,” added the director. “That’s what this footage is. So we shot it in this higher-quality, more intense format to get across that feeling.” Then, the footage began.

Kicking off with a sweeping shot of downtown Gotham, the camera zooms in above a few buildings before focusing in on a single, traditional skyscraper covered in windows. Suddenly, one window in the skyscraper explodes outward, exposing two criminals inside. Donning clown masks and standing with a rifle, the two criminals shoot a grappling hook across a busy street below to the next building—the Gotham National Bank. The two then slide across using a zip line.

On the street below, a man stands, his face unseen as the shot creeps up from behind, a clown mask slung in his grip. A van suddenly screeches up before he climbs inside and the van hauls off again. Inside, there are now three men, all wearing clown masks. They begin negatively discussing their boss and how he’s sitting out the heist. “The guy thinks he can sit out and get a cut?” laughs one man. “Must be why they call him the Joker!”

Back on the bank’s roof, the two men we first saw now shimmy into the bank’s security wiring while also discussing the boss. “Why do you think they call him Joker?” asks one. “I hear it’s cause he wears make-up,” answers the other. “Like war paint.”

Suddenly, below, the three men blast into the bank, demanding money and commanding everybody to the floor. Back on the roof, the two criminals intercept the out-going emergency alarm set off by an employee. After they cancel its signal, one of the men shoots the other and heads inside for the vault.

Back inside, the clown gunmen hand all the hostages live grenades. “We wouldn’t want your hands free would we?” asks one with a laugh.

At the vault, a clown opens the door, and just then a second clown shoots him in the back. They’re taking each other out so that the cut between them grows higher! And it’s all because the boss, the Joker, has told them to.

Back in the lobby, a bank manager surprisingly begins firing on the clown gunmen with a shotgun hidden under his desk. Turns out this bank belongs to an influential mobster and the manager, fearless and crazed, says as much to the clowns as he walks defiantly at them. He takes one out with a point-blank blast.

Two remain and manage to disarm the manager by shooting him in the arm before one clown turns his gun on the other.

“I’m sure the boss told you to take me out first,” says the one holding the gun. “No,” says the other, his hands in the air as he sways back in forth as if he didn’t care a gun was pointed at his chest. “I called a bus.”

“What?” asks the one holding a gun. And then BOOM, a school bus bursts its back end through the wall of the bank, killing the clown holding the gun! The lumpy driver steps out and asks what’s happened to the gang, just as the clown who’s life he saved shoots him without remorse.

The surviving clown begins to board the bus with bags of money when the bank manager, lying on the floor bleeding, tells the clown he has no idea who he’s messing with and asks why the crooks in this city have no beliefs anymore. The lone clown aborts boarding the bus and instead turns to the manager. The manager asks him dead to his face, “What do you believe in?”

As the clown slowly places a concussion grenade in the manager’s mouth, he removes his mask, exposing his scar-ridden face. It’s the Joker! “I believe that whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you stronger,” he says before smiling a huge, twisted grin.

The grenade has a string attached to its pin and as the Joker boards the bus, the string goes taut. When he pulls away and the pin comes loose, the manager lays sweating on the floor. Surely his head is about to explode! Instead, the bottom of the grenade emits a gray, harmless gas. It was a joke!

On the street, the bus pulls into traffic along with several others. Before long, sirens can be heard, but by then, the bus is lost in the crowd. The Joker gets away.

Then the footage cuts to several quick clips, including the new Batsuit in a cage, the new Batpod, the Batmobile (aka, the Tumbler), a shot of a fire truck on fire in the streets of Gotham, Batman on a roof overlooking his city and, finally, a clip of Lieutenant Gordon (played by Gary Oldman) using an ax to shatter the Batsignal.
When the lights came up, applause greeted Nolan before he invited everybody to join him in the lobby for cocktails.

Look for the footage to appear before select prints of “I Am Legend” in IMAX starting next weekend. “Hopefully they’ll play up until the movie comes out next summer,” added Nolan, who’s built a bigger, better, more intense corner into his Batman universe. Don’t be a Joker yourselves. Go see it!

Joker photo revealed

The cover photo for Empire magazine shows Heath Ledger's Joker. I really like the clothes, especially the socks. His hands have blood/dirt under the nails, cuts, and his fingernails are long and jagged. It almost looks like his right hand is burned. I was hoping for a full smile from the Joker, but I think Nolan is still holding that aspect of the character close to the vest. Ledger almost looks like Michael Keaton in this picture. What do you think?

Heath Ledger comments on playing the Joker

The New York Times has an article about Heath Ledger, and mentions a few interesting tidbits about his role as The Joker in "The Dark Knight".

"He is here in London filming the latest episode of the "Batman" franchise, "The Dark Knight." It is a physically and mentally draining role — his Joker is a 'psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy' he said cheerfully — and, as often happens when he throws himself into a part, he is not sleeping much. 'Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,' he said. 'I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.' One night he took an Ambien, which failed to work. He took a second one and fell into a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing.Here too was his Joker diary, which he began compiling four months before filming began. It is filled with images and thoughts helpful to the Joker back story, like a list of things the Joker would find funny. (AIDS is one of them.) Mr. Ledger seemed almost embarrassed that the book had been spotted, as if he had been caught trying to get extra credit in school. "

Sounds to me like Heath has really nailed the character, now I can't wait to see it on screen.

The Joker's Halloween Scavenger Hunt

Well, Rory the Pumpkin over at www.whysoserious.com is gone and the marketing machine for the upcoming Warner Brother's film "The Dark Knight" is in full swing again. The Joker has written a note for us that says "Hey Clowns! Ready to do what you're told? First, don't start before dayligh. With a police force this corrupt, it's not safe to be out at night, and anyway, you won't be able to see the things you want to find. Follow all of my directions to the letter and send photos of what you find. I'll make it worth your while, I promise - for what that's worth"

There are 50 clues, each listing a city and has a set of travel directions and a hint as to what to look for when there. Once the photo is received, a part of what looks to be a ransom note will be revealed. My guess is that we will get some photos from the film and maybe the teaser poster. It's too bad that Salt Lake City wasn't one of the cities selected, so I don't have an excuse to miss work and take part in the fun. I will be checking the site through the day though, to see what is taking place. I have to say, for a film that isn't out until July of 2008, the marketing is creating some real hype and expectations for this thing. I can't wait until we get a real trailer for this one!

UPDATE:


The letters are coming in and though there are a few missing, it looks like it says "The only sensible way to live in the world is without rules." Very cool.

Michael Caine talks about Heath Ledger as The Joker in "The Dark Knight"

Michael Caine has been giving huge amounts of praise for Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker in next summer's "The Dark Knight".

Caine said " I saw the Joker, and it's one of the scariest performances I've ever seen. He’s fantastic. He’s gone in a different direction than Jack (Nicholson) … Jack was like a really scary old, nasty old uncle with a funny face. Heath is like the most murderous psychopath you’ve ever seen on the screen. He'll frighten the life out of you. He did me the first time I saw him because we did a rehearsal on the first day and we hadn't met or anything. He had to come up in an elevator to Batman's home. I'm thinking I'm letting friends in, instead of which he's killed them all and he's coming up in the lift. In the first rehearsal, I've never seen him, and he has like seven dwarves with him like Snow White only it's not like that. When the bloody door opens on the lift, he came tearing out. I forgot every line I had. Terrifying."

The Joker is rumored to have henchmen in clown masks and have nicknames based on the Seven Dwarves. I don't think the Joker has actual dwarves, but who knows?