‘The Batman’: Barry Keoghan’s deleted Joker scene with Robert Pattinson released

Director Matt Reeves has released a deleted scene from his superhero epic The Batman.

The chilling scene features Robert Pattinson’s Caped Crusader facing off against his classic nemesis, the Joker, played by Barry Keoghan.

As Reeves explained to Variety in a recent interview, the scene follows Batman’s discovery that the Riddler has killed the Gotham City police commissioner, leaving behind another of his cryptic notes addressed to the Batman. Unnerved by the Riddler’s interest in him, Batman decides to seek out insight into what makes the Riddler tick.

The filmmaker liked the idea of suggesting to the audience that Gotham is rife with villains just on the edge of the story and that Keoghan’s Joker is one of the first enemies Batman captures.

Reeves noted, “You realize that they have a relationship and that this guy obviously did something, and Batman somehow got him into Arkham.”

“Almost our anniversary, isn’t it?” Joker tells Batman in the scene.

Watch the scene below:

While this scene was deleted, Reeves kept a follow-up scene at the end of The Batman in which Joker and Riddler connect in adjacent cells in the Arkham State Hospital.