Gotham’s Take On The Joker Won’t Actually Be Called The Joker

Gotham’s executive producer, Danny Cannon, recently revealed that The Joker won’t actually be called The Joker in the show, which leaves us wondering, what will they call him and who the hell is he?

WARNING: SPOILERS for Gotham Season 4 ahead.

So if you’ve all been keeping up with Gotham Season 4, then you would have seen the show’s big Joker reveal. Fans of the show have been asking who will become Batman’s most infamous foe in FOX’s TV show. They had been teasing that Cameron Monaghan’s Jerome Valeska was going to become Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime, but that turned out to be a huge misdirect. In fact, that honour fell to his twin brother, Jeremiah, in a ‘twist’ (of sorts) that came out of nowhere. 

Before being killed off for good, Jerome had one last trick up his sleeve. He sent a jack-in-the-box to his unsuspecting twin brother who upon opening it was doused by a poisonous spray that turned him into what we all thought was The Joker. Turns out that still might be quite the case if Gotham Executive Producer, Danny Cannon is to be believed.

During an interview with ComicBook.com, Cannon was asked whether they’ll start referring to Jerimiah as The Joker in Gotham, to which his answer was an unexpected one. He revealed that they wouldn’t call him by that name.

“I don’t think so, no,” Cannon replied. “This is an origin show about the beginnings of everything, therefore we just wanted to do the beginnings of why.”

“When we first did the pilot, we were trying to create a world where someone like Batman would be necessary, and that’s what we’ve done these last four years. If you want to survive as a villain in Gotham, you’ve got to think big.”

He continued: “We just wanted to really make an origin story of not just one character at a time, and how they got made, but why things get so out of hand in Gotham, and where criminality is going in Gotham.”

“How far it can get, how bad it can get before someone dons that black suit, becomes a vigilante that will change the city forever,” he finished.

So it sounds like it’ll be a while before we end up seeing the Joker we all came to know in the comics in Gotham. And even though Cannon’s comments do make some sort of sense, they’ve already embarked on the origins stories of so many other criminals from Batman’s rogues’ gallery, so why hold out on the Joker? Perhaps it’s because that particular character is so closely linked to Batman’s origins that the showrunners would prefer to wait until Bruce Wayne officially becomes Batman before introducing the man who will become the Dark Knight’s most dangerous and troublesome enemy to date.

Are you enjoying Gotham and what did you make of Jeremiah becoming a new type of Joker? Let us know in the comments below.