8 Ways Heath Ledger’s Joker Almost Turned Out Completely Different

4. The Marketing Was Changed After Ledger Died

Promotional ARGs (Alternate Reality Games) that give fans a mostly-online experience of their favourite movies and TV shows have somewhat fallen out of fashion in recent years, but in the late-noughties they were all the rage. Even more questions were raised by The Lost Experience, Cloverfield amped up its mystery monster to painful levels of hype by detailing a battle between big oil and eco-protestors and, best of all, The Dark Knight brought the preamble to the Batman sequel to vivid life.

The Dark Knight ARG was ridiculously complex, kicking off at Comic-Con 2007 and, over the next year, leading the more obsessively-inclined fans through the schemes of the Joker, Harvey Dent's campaign trail and Gordon's attempts to bring down the Clown Prince of Crime.

Incredibly fun at the time, looking back there's a noticeable shift in focus about halfway through, with the Joker becoming less prominent in events. Obviously this was a sudden change brought about in reaction to Ledger's death, which, while probably over-sensitive in retrospect, makes sense given how high profile it was.

This tact spilled over into the film's more mainstream marketing; had Ledger not died, it's likely his Joker would have been as prominent on posters and the like as Batman. In the end, however, it didn't matter too much - once the film hit he was all anyone was talking about.