The Rumored Alternate Ending of ‘Joker’ Could Have Changed DC Comics Forever

“This world has no Batman, it’s just all fucking Jokers.”

Months after a historic run at the box office, Joker plot points and fan theories are still being tested.

Yesterday, director Todd Phillips revealed the fate of one of the film’s most contentious character arcs in the release of his full final shoot script. And in short order, another potential turn for the film has been brought into the fold.

On a recent episode of Kevin Smith‘s Fatman Beyond podcast, the Clerks director shared a much darker alternate ending told to him by a trusted source. And it could have irreparably changed the DC Comics universe. According to Smith, Joker almost capped with not only the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents, but the death of Batman-to-be himself.

READ: Boots Riley Critiques Joker: “These Superhero Movies are Cop Movies”

On the scrapped  ending, Smith tells his audience, “So he’s in the hospital and he laughs, chuckles, and he says, ‘I was just thinking of something funny.’ What was supposed to happen was you flashed back to the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne and it was him killing Thomas and Martha Wayne and the boy was screaming and crying and he turned to walk away and he turned back, shrugged, and shot the kid. Credits.”

Smith capped the recital with an exclamatory “What the fuck, man?!,” adding “That’s like the biggest ‘fuck you’ to the audience. It’s like this world has no Batman. It’s just all fucking Jokers.”

Watch Kevin Smith’s reveal of an alternate Joker ending below (at around 16:40.)