Tim Burton’s 1989 superhero film Batman is one of my favorite films. I realize it’s got a load of issues but there are so many delightfully charming aspects about it that I can’t help but enjoy it thoroughly. From the magnificent set designs to Danny Elfman’s iconic and masterful score, there really isn’t a moment in the film where I don’t find myself having a ton of fun.
One of the results of this movie was the iconic performance of Jack Nicholson as the Joker, which would go down as possibly the best portrayal seen in cinema. To this day, there are debates on whether Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger played the character better, with many simply agreeing to disagree*. His ability to shift from gleefully insane to psychotically enraged was masterful and it’s a performance that is simply inspiring.
But did you know that Jack Nicholson wasn’t the original choice for Jack Napier, aka the Joker? Director Burton originally had someone else in mind, an actor who is very well known to horror fans for his own iconic laugh: Brad Dourif, who voiced Chucky in the Child’s Play films!
Dourif explained all this at a NYCC panel for the 25th anniversary of Child’s Play, telling the audience, “Tim Burton saw me on a plane and wanted to cast me and they [the studio] said no.” Burton wasn’t ready to give up on Dourif either. The actor told the crowd that when Burton was still attached to 1995’s Batman Forever, he was considered to play the Scarecrow.
While we’ll never know what it would’ve been like had Dourif played the Joker, I can only imagine his laugh echoing throughout the film, haunting Batman. And I like the idea of that.
* The answer is Mark Hamill from “Batman: The Animated Series”, in case you’re wondering.
