The dark and divisive Alan Moore comic The Killing Joke is going to be just as dark and divisive as a movie, with an R rating to prove it. Aside from Zack Snyder’s extended home-release of Batman v Superman coming later this year, The Killing Joke will be one of two R rated DC movies.
For anyone who’s read Moore’s The Killing Joke, you know why it needs an R rating. Published in 1988, The Killing Joke is a tragic origin story of The Joker and how Batgirl became confined to a wheelchair.
The story finds the Clown Prince of Crime taunting the Dark Knight and attempting to drive Commissioner Gordon mad with photos of his paralyzed, badly wounded, naked daughter. Hailed by some as the definitive Joker text, Moore’s story is still controversial among fans for its dark, tragic, and brutally misogynistic story. It definitely needs that R rating to do the story any justice.
Starring Kevin Conroy as Batman, Tara Strong as Batgirl, and Mark Hamill as The Joker, The Killing Joke will have its world premiere at San Diego Comic-Con this summer and drop on Blu-ray and DVD after that.
