UPDATED: New Ledger/Joker photo REVEALED!

Update:

And here it is. As Buster Bluth might say, “Wicked.”

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Update:

Closer, ever closer …

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Update:

Check out that snazzy vest.

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Update:

And now an arm and a hand. That’s one funky sleeve.

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Update:

We’ve got both legs now …

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Keep your eyes on Empire Online for a new photo of Heath Ledger as The Joker!So far the cards covering his leg and foot have been removed, and the whole picture should be visible soon.

I love the old-timey shoes and the multi-colored socks. This guy’s going to look like one crazy psychopath, which is exactly what he should look like.

Thanks as always to Bill “Jett” Ramey at Batman on Film for the heads-up.

Rorschach!

Director Zack Snyder, who made this year’s massively successful 300, is blogging about his experiences adapting Alan Moore’s classic comic series Watchmen into a feature film.

If you’ve read Watchmen you know how awesome the story is, but it’s the storytelling itself that’s still about 50 years ahead of its time.

I don’t know how its 12 issues of social/political commentary and complex superhero relationships that span across decades can possibly be streamlined into a movie, but Snyder did an awesome job translating Frank Miller’s admittedly spartan tale of Spartans in 300.

So, we’ll see.

Anyway, one of the film’s most interesting characters is Rorschach, a conspiracy theorist and all-around wacko whose detective skills and paranoia might just be the keys to stopping the murders of his fellow heroes. He’ll be played by Jackie Earle Haley in the movie.

And Snyder has furtively given us our first glance of Rorschach — aside from one frame hidden in a trailer for 300 — in one of the new photos he just posted in his latest blog entry.

Click the photo below to see the others, and then click the photos themselves to see them in their original, high-resolution glory:

Wow! Watchmen occurs in an alternate history where Richard Nixon never stopped being president, and most of the action happens in 1985. The photos look amazing and appropriate. So even if the film struggles narratively, at least it’ll look great.

More Watchmen coverage here.

You’ll watch the Watchmen on March 6, 2009!

More Michael Caine comments about The Joker

Earth Times spoke to Michael Caine, who played Bruce Wayne’s butler and friend, Alfred Pennyworth, in Batman Begins and will reprise the role in next summer’s sequel, The Dark Knight.

In the interview, Caine again expresses his admiration for the work done by Heath Ledger as The Joker:

“The problem was, how do you top Jack Nicholson as the Joker? Heath Ledger plays the Joker and he is fantastic. I couldn’t see how Jack could be topped but he’s at least equal to him. It’s extraordinary. Jack’s Joker was a very nasty old uncle, this Joker is a maniacal, murderous psychopath.

“And when you see the make-up – he looks like he’s mentally gone. He puts the make-up on to disguise himself and then goes and never takes it off again, or washes, so gradually it looks like leprosy. I’m a great fan of Christopher Nolan. I thought ‘Batman Begins’ was the best Batman I’d ever seen. And I think this one will be better than that.”

July 18, anyone?