THE DARK KNIGHT Scrapped Video Game Reveals The Unseen Fate Of Heath Ledger's Joker

There was a time when new superhero movies were almost always accompanied by video game tie-ins. Some of those were good (Spider-Man 2, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), while most were terrible (Catwoman, Iron Man). Now, we rarely see games like that on consoles.

Batman Begins, however, got the video game treatment in 2005, and the same was supposed to apply to The Dark Knight three years later. The open-world title set in Gotham City was meant to be released in time for The Dark Knight's theatrical run. Pandemic asked EA for more time, but when they couldn't get it finished in time for the DVD's debut, the game was scrapped. 

Heath Ledger died months before The Dark Knight arrived in theaters in 2008. That meant the actor never got to see the response to his performance as The Joker, a role that saw him posthumously awarded the "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar the following year.

It's impossible to imagine anyone else playing the Clown Prince of Crime in the Christopher Nolan-helmed movie, especially as Ledger's interpretation of the Clown Prince of Crime has become nothing short of iconic. We don't know whether the actor was set to reprise the role in The Dark Knight Rises, as it hadn't even been written at that point. However, rumours have long swirled about an Arkham Asylum cameo.

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Now, artwork and animatics from the cancelled The Dark Knight video game have surfaced, offering at least one idea of what might have become of this iconic villain following his defeat at Batman's hands.

While it likely wasn't going to be "canon" to Nolan's films, we see The Joker ambushing Batman, using gas to render him unconscious, and then stealing a Batarang, which he uses to kill a female hostage (possibly framing the vigilante). 

Later, we find The Joker in Arkham with broken legs and staring at the Bat-signal through the small window in his cell, a hint perhaps about how his story was going to end after he was cut down from where Batman left him hanging in the movie itself.

You may recall that The Dark Knight's novelisation revealed that The Joker was Arkham's sole inmate after he terrorised Gotham, something, like this game, we're sure Nolan must have approved or had some input with. This ending may have been a scrapped post-credits scene or alternate ending, for example.

You can find links to these resurfaced storyboards from The Dark Knight's cancelled video game below.