With new actor Robert Pattinson stepping into the role of the Dark Knight in 2021’s The Batman, fans have been speculating who the next person to portray the Joker will be. One name that’s come up as a possibility is Bill Skarsgard, who famously plays the evil clown Pennywise in both It movies.
With this dream casting in mind, artist William Gray put together some fan art of Bill Skarsg&ård as the Joker with Pattinson’s Batman. While it does seem like an easy transition to go from one clownish character to another, the results are admittedly convincing, as it’s easy to buy Skarsgard in the role when seeing what it could look like.
This isn’t the only Joker fan casting suggestion to garner lots of attention on the internet. A photoshopped image of Macaulay Culkin as the Joker went viral earlier this year, and the idea was seemingly embraced by many Batman fans. Culkin may not be as busy in Hollywood as he was as a child actor, and snagging a role like the Joker could mark an incredible comeback. Still, to be clear, none of the villains to be included in The Batman have been officially confirmed, so there’s a good chance we won’t be seeing the Clown Prince of Crime at all in the upcoming superhero movie.
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Naturally, there’s been lots of speculation over which other villains we’ll end up seeing in the movie, leading to fans running with their own casting decisions. When one fan pitched the idea of casting Dave Bautista as Bane, Bautista himself agreed in a tweet of his own. Josh Gad has also famously peen campaigning for a casting as the Penguin for a very long time, but has since confirmed online there are no plans to cast him in The Batman. Another name that’s come up in the rumor mill is Vanessa Kirby as Catwoman, and although the actress is open to accepting the part, she revealed she’d had no talks with the studio either.
As of right now, only one actor is officially confirmed to be a part of the cast of The Batman, and that’s obviously Robert Pattinson in the titular role. This casting alone was met with some criticism when it was first announced, with critics pointing to Pattinson’s status as a teen heartthrob from the Twilight movies. Others have defended the choice, arguing Pattinson’s versatility as an actor has been tested in many dramatic roles he’s since taken in more recent years. In any case, he’s going to be our next Batman, for better or for worse, and we’ll all see how he does when the movie hits theaters on June 25, 2021.
Of every Joker performance we’ve seen in years past, what they all have in common is that they’ve all been very unique. Each actor has found a way to mold the character as their own, for better or for worse. We’ll see what ends up happening with the character in the new timeline The Batman will introduce, but we can all see how Joaquin Phoenix does as the Clown Prince of Crime in the meantime when Joker hits theaters on Oct. 4, 2019. The fan art of Skarsgard as the Joker comes to us courtesy of William Gray on Instagram.
