Trivia / Batman: The Killing Joke

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Mark Hamill has been trying to do this movie for years, even after "retiring" from the role of The Joker (though he did break that promise). As it is, the film does bring together most of the surviving voice cast of Batman: The Animated Series as well as key creative team members.
• Development Hell: The Killing Joke took almost three decades to get a film adaptation as the comic is not only very short (being a single issue that is only 48 pages long), but is drawn and written in a way that could truly take advantage of the comic medium (which is a trademark of Alan Moore's work and is precisely one of the reasons why he is against adaptations of his work), making it incredibly hard to translate into film. When Warner Bros. did get around to adapting the story into an animated film, not only were numerous changes made to make the story work better in animation, but an entirely new prologue starring Barbara was added to make the story longer.
• No Dub for You: In Latin America, albeit only exclusively in theaters, as the movie exploited the loophole regarding art films so they could release the movie without one. The home video release will include one as required by law.^note Not to mention the fact in some countries, especially Mexico, also requires all dubbed films being dubbed in Mexico by Mexican voice actors or their local equivalents, while the film was dubbed in Venezuela due to cost reasons and the fact previous animated works involving Batman were dubbed there.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Barbara's Gay Best Friend Reese is played by J. P. Karliak, who is also gay.
• Recycled Script: An outline of the tacked-on prologue focused on Batgirl against Paris Franz (about a Smug Snake, bigshot-wannabe nephew of Gotham's mob boss, who makes it personal and ugly between him and a member of the Batman Family) is basically the recycled plot of The Animated Series episode, "Robin's Reckoning"; with Barbara Gordon instead of Dick Grayson, and with more violence and tons of gratuitous "adult" content added.
• Role Reprise:
  • Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Tara Strong reprise their respective roles as Batman, the Joker, and Barbara Gordon, from Batman: The Animated Series. The stinger shows Barbara becoming Oracle. On Beware the Batman, Tara's Barbara in that series became Oracle instead of Batgirl.
  • In the French dub, several voice actors from previous adaptations reprised their roles here:
    • From the Batman Film Series: Jacques Ciron as Alfred.
    • From Justice League vs. Teen Titans: Emmanuel Jacomy as Batman/Bruce Wayne.
    • From LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League: Gotham City Breakout: In addition to Batman, Marc Saez as the Joker, Véronique Picciotto as Batgirl/Barbara Gordon, and Gabriel Le Doze as Commissioner Gordon.
• What Could Have Been: An animated adaptation of The Killing Joke with art by Phil Bourassa (of Young Justice and the DC Animated Movie Universe) was in production as early as 2009 but was shelved due to Watchmen's underperformance, as confirmed by Bourassa in an Instagram post◊.

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