Bill Skarsgard has proven that he can play the part of a demented clown, but playing the Joker as opposed to Pennywise would still be a bit different, as Pennywise is more or less a demented monster that’s been around for millennia, while the Joker is even more inherently terrifying since he doesn’t hibernate for decades at a time after causing a spot of trouble around Gotham. Giving Skarsgard the chance to show that he could bring his own brand of madness to the role might be a great idea since so far, anyone following the late Heath Ledger has either divided audiences with their performance or has been Jared Leto, who was just a big, white-skinned waste of time according to some folks. Josh Plainse of Screenrant has his own take on this subject. Giving the part to Skarsgard could come with a few caveats though since if you look at the history of the Joker on screen you’ll see that the guys that have played him thus far have looked pretty grimy and gritty in their own ways. Jack Nicholson was getting older at that point and had more of an edge to him, Heath Ledger was absolutely psychotic in the role, Jared Leto was just…..yeah, Jared Leto, and Joaquin Phoenix was somehow dirty, disheveled, and artistic at the same time. And yet the image of the Joker that many people have had in mind a lot of times is a dapper gentleman that looks as though he’s ready to see if he can play tic-tac-toe with your exposed vital organs. Perhaps calling Bill soft isn’t really the right word, as he showed with Pennywise that he can turn on the horror, but with the Joker there’s something so intrinsically terrifying since his purpose for doing the things he does isn’t always entirely clear even if there’s a method to his madness. He simply does things because he’s a chaotic person, and yet he’s able to maintain enough control to be the kind of villain that has a definite plan, no matter how screwy it might appear.
My one gripe, my own personal hangup with Bill taking on the role, would be that he doesn’t look as though he has the right edge for it. Can he look mean while flashing a maniacal smile? Yes he can, he can look like a being that wants to find out what your soul tastes like sprinkled with a bit of salt, but there’s still a large gap between being Pennywise and being the Joker, and if Bill was somehow able to find that then he’d be perfect and the role should go to him. Corey Chichizola of CinemaBlend has more to offer on this. But as anyone that’s been watching knows there are plenty of actors that people think would be the ‘perfect’ Joker, and having played a clown isn’t the only criteria that’s bound to get a person into such a role. He would definitely be a name to be considered for certain, but unless he could find a way to edge out the competition, and there have been plenty of names added to the still-growing list, it’s likely that Skarsgard might be seen as a what-if candidate, but could fall just short of the mark. That might come as a bit of a surprise but giving him the role wouldn’t do him any good, while allowing him to earn the role as he could easily do would be so much better since it would force him to step into an arena where he shines in any case since doing his best and giving the people what they want to see is one of his specialties. The fact that the IT story didn’t end up being quite as spectacular at the ending wasn’t his fault, and he did what he could to make it work, but getting out-bullied by a group of humans that the creature was about to finally end was a little, meh.
Pitting Skarsgard as the Joker against the Batman though? That sounds very interesting, not to mention that it could work on a very intriguing level and might even be enough to start up the feud between the two of them again in a way that might inspire future movies or even a TV show. When you figure in how many times the Joker and Batman have gone around and around, and the fact that it was mentioned in The Dark Knight, it would make sense to create a series or a trilogy or SOMETHING that would feature the Joker more than once, and that would highlight the battles that he and Batman have endured. Ackeime Johnson of CBR can help jog your memory on this count. After all it’s not every character that can get under the dark knight’s skin like the Joker, as the best part about him is that he has no super powers and yet he’s taken the Batman to task more than once. Skarsgard would be perfect in such a capacity.
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