'Joker' Joaquin Phoenix Movie: Batmobile Video Hints at Time Shenanigans

The new Joker movie, which stars Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role as Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime, takes place before Batman ever existed. It’s a world where Bruce’s dad, Thomas Wayne, is still alive and running for mayor. So what’s the Batmobile doing on set?

That’s the question Batman fans are reckoning with after a video from the Joker’s New Jersey set revealed what looks a lot like the original Batmobile from the Adam West TV show.

As you can see in the photo above and the video up top. This new Batmobile looks an awful lot like the one from the 1960s TV show. That’s a cool reference, but it doesn’t explain how Batman can exist in a world where his parents are still alive. Of course, when it comes to comic book stories pretty much anything is possible, and there are a few ways this might make sense in the film.

The first is that Batman somehow travels back in time, potentially to stop Joaquin Phoenix’s character from ever becoming the Joker. But that seems a little farfetched, especially for what appears to be a pretty grounded take on the supervillain’s origin story.

More likely, the Batmobile will show up in some sort of flashforward sequence that shows the future after Bruce Wayne becomes Batman. This could be a clever way to end the film while hinting at a potential sequel to the Joaquin Phoenix movie, which exists outside the current Justice League continuity.

Finally, we could be witnessing some sort of multi-dimensional shenanigans like Flashpoint or Crisis on Infinite Earths. In that case, the movie can do pretty much anything it wants by saying it came from another dimension. But again, based on what we know about Joker so far, it seems unlikely we’ll see that type of story play out in the film.

Joker hits theaters on October 4, 2019.