“Maybe we’ll try to do that”: the iconic role Robert De Niro nearly reprised under unusual circumstances
Not many actors have been able to resist the lure of sequels for their entire careers, but there was realistically nowhere for Robert De Niro to go but down after his first taste of filmic follow-ups came under the direction of two all-time greats.
The actor’s maiden sequel came very early on when he reprised the role of Jon Rubin in Brian De Palma’s Hi, Mom!, which was released two years after its 1968 predecessor, Greetings. His second foray into cinematic continuations went several steps further because it unfolded in one of the greatest movies ever made.
Although he may not have originated the role, De Niro somehow managed to follow in the footsteps of Marlon Brando’s Vito Corleone and win an Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II.
Since then, the only sequels he’d added to the collection have been Analyze This, Analyze That, and the Meet the Parents trilogy, but there was one iconic character he seriously considered contemplating. It was fitting, in a way, after the film that initially put the idea into his head was so heavily indebted to his seminal collaborations with Martin Scorsese that it bordered on hero worship.
Todd Phillips’ Joker was basically the love child of Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy filtered through the lens of a stripped-back comic book adaptation, and theories quickly began making the rounds that De Niro’s talk show host Murray Franklin may as well have been Rupert Pupkin getting the chance to live out his twisted dreams and become the face of a nationally televised series.
“There’s a connection, obviously, with the whole thing,” De Niro acknowledged to IndieWire of the ties between Joker and The King of Comedy. “But it’s not as a direct connection as the character I’m playing being Rupert many years later as a host.” He may not have seen it as an official sequel, but he wasn’t against the idea of definitively joining those dots if somebody had asked.
“If they would’ve proposed that to me, I would’ve said, ‘That’s interesting, maybe we’ll try to do that,'” he admitted. “But by making this type of film, it is connected in a way.” Needless to say, had anyone involved with Joker suggested that Franklin really was Pupkin living under a different name and De Niro had gotten on board with the concept, Scorsese would have probably been apoplectic.
It was one of the biggest disappointments of the filmmaker’s career that The King of Comedy flopped at the box office, and if De Niro had taken a second bite at the apple in a comic book movie of all things, then Scorsese’s longtime muse may as well have rubbed a mountain of salt into a wound that’s never been allowed to fully heal.
