14 DAY TRIAL // Remember how, back in 2010, there was a rumor saying “The Dark Knight Rises” would feature a cameo of Heath Ledger as The Joker, made possible thanks to unused footage from the second installment?
That didn't happen – but it doesn't keep fans from wondering where The Joker, the biggest and sickest villain Batman ever faced before Bane, is when Bane releases all the inmates of Blackgate Prison in the final installment.
Fans of Chris Nolan's trilogy already know that Heath Ledger, who played The Joker in “The Dark Knight,” tragically passed before the film came out – but it's rather odd that his character's name isn't mentioned even once, though others' are in flashbacks tying the two films together.
NukeTheFridge has found a possible explanation in the novelization by Greg Cox, out now.
“Now that the Dent Act had made it all but impossible for the city’s criminals to cop an insanity plea, it (Blackgate Prison) had replaced Arkham Asylum as a preferred location for imprisoning both convicted and suspected felons,” says an excerpt from “The Dark Knight Rises: The Official Novelization.”
When Bane sets all of them free as he takes over Gotham, The Joker is oddly missing from the bunch. Scarecrow is there, though.
“The worst of the worst were sent here, except for the Joker, who, rumor had it, was locked away as Arkham’s sole remaining inmate. Or perhaps he had escaped. Nobody was really sure. Not even Selina,” Cox writes.
Chris Nolan once said he would not address The Joker in TDKR out of respect for the late actor. Leaving his storyline open to interpretation for fans is his way of doing that.