Jonah Gantry was nothing if not persistent.
The theatrical run for The Dark Knight had officially ended. The movie had made its money, the DVDs were being pressed, and the promotional cycle was technically over. But Gantry, sitting in his executive office at Warner Bros, refused to let the momentum die. He wanted the sequel to have a massive, rabid, built-in audience before a script was even finalized.
So, the WB marketing department pushed a massive social media campaign across every available platform. They bought sponsored tags, partnered with massive creators, and pushed a very simple prompt to the masses: Act out your favorite character or scene from The Dark Knight.
The internet, as it always does when given a clear instruction and the promise of viral fame, completely lost its mind.
Within forty-eight hours, the trend had taken over everything. You couldn't open YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok without seeing someone trying to do a gravelly Batman voice. The attempts ranged from absolutely pathetic to genuinely impressive. You had fourteen-year-old kids in their messy bedrooms smearing cheap lipstick on their cheeks and trying to laugh like a maniac into their webcams. Then, you had massive influencers pouring thousands of dollars into their fifteen-second videos. People were renting out warehouses, using heavy green screens, applying Hollywood-level prosthetic makeup, and adding CGI explosions just to act out a single page of the comic books or a scene from the movie.
It was the inescapable, dominant trend of the month. Everyone was trying to ride the Warner Bros hype train to get a million views.
Miles away from the corporate offices in Burbank, the Bel Air villa was completely quiet.
It was a late Friday night. The massive living room was dark, illuminated only by the massive flat-screen television playing a cooking show on mute and the soft, yellow glow of a single floor lamp.
Daniel Miller was lying on the expansive white sectional sofa, his head resting on a throw pillow, staring blankly at the ceiling. He was wearing faded gray sweatpants and a plain black t-shirt. He looked completely drained. The Empire Strikes Back shoot was currently grinding through its heaviest, most complicated practical effects schedule, and he had spent the last fourteen hours shouting instructions over the noise of industrial wind machines.
Florence Pugh was sitting next to him, her legs draped casually over his waist. She was wearing an oversized UCLA hoodie she had stolen from his closet and a pair of thick socks. She was supposed to be resting—her Princess Leia call times were just as brutal as his directing schedule—but she was currently wide awake, scrolling endlessly through her phone.
They were both exhausted, but they had a strict rule. When they were in the house, they didn't talk about the studio. They actively fought to carve out these small, quiet pockets of time for themselves, just to remember what it felt like to be normal twenty-somethings.
Florence let out a short, sudden laugh.
"What?" Daniel asked, not moving his head.
"This guy just tried to do the Batman interrogation scene with his golden retriever," Florence said, turning her phone screen toward him. "The dog looks incredibly confused."
Daniel glanced at the screen, offering a tired smile. "People have a lot of free time."
Florence pulled the phone back, her thumb flicking upward to the next video. Another Joker impression played through the small speakers. She watched it for a second before pausing the app and looking down at Daniel.
"I have a question," Florence said, resting her phone on her stomach.
"Shoot."
"Do you actually hate DC?" she asked. "I know you and Jonah Gantry have this massive, petty billionaire feud going on. And you own Marvel now. But do you actually hate the characters? Because this trend is everywhere, and I feel like you're probably annoyed by it."
Daniel shifted on the couch, turning his head to look at her. He looked genuinely surprised by the question.
"I don't hate DC," Daniel said simply. "I actually love the DC universe. The comics, the lore, the animated shows... Gotham is one of the best fictional settings ever created. Batman has the best rogues gallery in comic book history. The potential of those characters is massive."
"Then why do you go out of your way to torment Warner Bros?" Florence asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Because I hate the corporate suits currently running the IP," Daniel clarified. "Gantry doesn't care about the stories. He cares about the quarterly earnings report. He treats the characters like brand assets instead of people. I have beef with the executives. I don't have beef with the Batman."
Florence smiled, satisfied with the answer. "That's fair."
She picked her phone back up and unpaused the video. A guy covered in cheap face paint was trying to do a Joker laugh, and it sounded like a dying bird.
"This trend is getting out of hand, though," Florence noted. "Some of these are just painful to watch."
Daniel watched the guy on her screen. He stared at the messy face paint, the forced, theatrical movements.
"Should I do one?" Daniel asked casually.
Florence stopped scrolling. She froze entirely. She slowly lowered the phone, staring at him to see if he was joking. His face was completely neutral.
"Are you serious?" Florence asked, her voice ticking up half an octave.
"Why not?" Daniel shrugged. "I'm bored. My brain is fried from looking at storyboards all day. And it would definitely annoy Jonah Gantry."
Florence instantly brightened up. The exhaustion completely vanished from her face. She practically scrambled off the couch, her socks sliding on the hardwood floor.
"Yes," Florence said, pointing at him. "Yes, you definitely should. Don't move."
She wasn't just excited because Daniel was finally going to participate in a social media trend. He had millions of followers across his platforms, but he exclusively used them to post official Miller Studios press releases, movie posters, and the occasional boring photo of a camera rig. He never posted personal videos. He never engaged with the influencer culture.
But Florence had a completely different reason for wanting him to do this.
She wanted to see him act.
A few months into their relationship, Tom Wiley had gotten a few beers in him at a wrap party and told Florence a story about the casting process for 12 Angry Men. Tom had sworn, with absolute sincerity, that Elias Thorne had been struggling to find the right angry, bitter tone for Juror 3. To demonstrate what he wanted, Daniel had stood up in the casting room, grabbed a chair, and delivered the monologue himself. Tom had told Florence it was the best, most terrifying live performance he had ever seen in his life, and he was genuinely afraid Daniel was going to throw the chair through the window.
Florence had always had a hard time imagining it. Daniel was always so calm. He was calculated. He guided actors incredibly well, but she had never actually seen him step into a character's shoes. The idea of him playing a maniac was too good to pass up.
Florence ran down the hall and ducked into the spare bedroom she had converted into a small art studio. She painted in her free time to decompress, which meant she had a massive supply of high-end acrylics, brushes, and sponges. She grabbed a small plastic tackle box full of supplies and sprinted back into the living room.
"Sit up," Florence commanded, dropping the box onto the coffee table.
Daniel sat up, crossing his legs on the sofa. "You're taking this very seriously."
"I have a vision," Florence said, popping the latch on the box. She pulled out a small, aerosol can of temporary hair color she had bought for a Halloween party last year. "Your hair is perfect right now."
It was true. Because of the grueling Star Wars schedule, Daniel hadn't had the time to sit in a barber's chair for months. His dark hair had grown out, falling in messy, uneven waves down to his shoulders.
Florence shook the can of spray dye. "Close your eyes."
Daniel closed his eyes. Florence sprayed his hair, working her fingers through the strands to make it look greasy, matted, and uneven. The dye was a dark, sickly, toxic green.
"Okay, open," Florence said, tossing the can onto the table. She pulled out a tube of thick white theatrical base makeup and a small sponge.
She kneeled on the rug between his knees, leaning in close. She started applying the white base to his face. She didn't make it smooth or perfect. She intentionally left the edges rough, letting his natural skin tone show through around his hairline and neck, making it look like the makeup had been sweating off for days.
Daniel sat perfectly still, letting her work.
"Tom told me you acted out a scene for Elias Thorne once," Florence murmured, her face inches from his as she blended the white paint over his cheekbones.
Daniel chuckled softly. "Tom talks too much when he drinks."
"He said you were terrifying," Florence noted, picking up a thin brush and a pot of heavy black greasepaint. "He said you completely disappeared."
"It's just focus," Daniel said, closing his eyes as she started painting the black, hollow circles around his eye sockets. "I know exactly what the character is supposed to feel, so I just let myself feel it for a minute."
Florence finished the eyes, smudging the black paint downward so it looked like tears of grease were running down his cheeks. She grabbed a tube of bright, aggressive red paint.
"Don't smile," Florence ordered.
She painted the red over his lips, extending the lines far out across his cheeks in a jagged, jagged, messy imitation of a scarred grin.
She sat back on her heels and looked at him.
A genuine shiver ran down her spine. The transformation was alarming. With his messy green hair, the hollow, darkened eyes, and the harsh red smile, he didn't look like the guy she had just been watching a cooking show with. He looked deranged.
"How do I look?" Daniel asked, his normal, calm voice sounding completely wrong coming out of that painted face.
"You look awful," Florence said, grinning. "It's perfect. Go set the camera up."
Daniel stood up and walked over to a high-end digital SLR camera sitting on a shelf. He grabbed it, mounted it to a sturdy tripod, and carried it into the center of the living room.
He didn't want the background to be distracting. He moved the tripod so the camera was pointing toward a blank, dark gray wall in the dining area. He grabbed a simple wooden dining chair and placed it in the center of the frame.
Then, he turned off all the overhead lights in the room. He grabbed a small, harsh LED reading lamp and set it on a table just out of the frame, angling the light so it hit the chair from the side, casting deep, aggressive shadows across the wall.
"Sit on the couch," Daniel told Florence, turning the camera on and checking the digital viewfinder. "I just need to do it once."
Florence hurried over to the sofa and sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest. She was practically buzzing with anticipation.
Daniel walked over to the wooden chair. He sat down.
He took a slow, deep breath.
Florence watched him from the couch. The change didn't happen when the camera started rolling. The change happened the second he sat in the chair.
Daniel dropped his shoulders. His posture, usually straight and commanding, completely collapsed inward. He hunched over, looking smaller, broken, and dangerously coiled. He tilted his head down, letting the messy, green-dyed hair fall across his face, obscuring his eyes in the dark shadows of the harsh lamp.
He reached out an arm and pressed the record button on the camera.
For three seconds, the room was dead silent. Daniel just sat there, breathing slowly.
Then, he started to smack his lips. It was a wet, disgusting, completely involuntary-sounding tic. He rolled his tongue around the inside of his cheek.
He slowly lifted his head.
Florence actually stopped breathing.
His eyes were completely dead. The warmth, the calculation, the intelligence that usually lived in Daniel's gaze was entirely gone. He looked through the camera lens like there was absolutely nothing behind it. It was the look of a rabid dog that had finally slipped its leash.
When he spoke, his voice didn't sound like Daniel. It was a gravelly, nasal, fluctuating pitch that sounded like it hurt his throat to produce.
"And I thought my jokes were bad," Daniel rasped, his eyes darting erratically around the room before locking back onto the lens.
He leaned back in the chair, casually throwing his arms over the armrests. He licked his lips again, the red paint smearing slightly.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't have my boy here pull your head off," Daniel said, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly casual, conversational tone.
He leaned forward suddenly, the movement sharp and jerky. He held up a single, standard yellow pencil he had grabbed from the desk. He slammed the pencil point-down into the wooden table that wasn't there, pantomiming the action perfectly.
"How about a magic trick?" Daniel asked, his voice rising in pitch, a manic, dangerous excitement bleeding into the words. "I'm gonna make this pencil disappear."
He stared at the camera. He didn't blink. He just waited a beat.
Then, he slammed his empty palm down onto the imaginary table.
"Ta-da!" Daniel whispered, throwing his hands up in a mocking gesture. He let out a short, breathy, humorless laugh. "It's... it's gone."
He sat back in the chair again, his posture shifting, looking bored. He started to pick at imaginary dirt under his fingernails.
"It's simple," Daniel said, his voice dropping so low it was almost a growl. He stopped picking at his nails and slowly looked up, glaring through the messy green hair directly into the camera. The sheer, unadulterated malice in his eyes was suffocating.
"We, uh... kill the Batman," Daniel finished, his lip curling up in a sneer that exposed his teeth.
He held the terrifying, dead-eyed glare for exactly two seconds.
Then, Daniel reached out, pressed the button on the camera, and stopped the recording.
The second the small red light on the camera turned off, the tension in the room instantly evaporated.
Daniel let out a long breath, sitting up straight. The hunched, coiled posture vanished. The dead look in his eyes was replaced by his normal, alert awareness. He ran a hand through his green hair, sighing.
"Was the audio okay?" Daniel asked, looking over at Florence in his normal, calm voice. "The AC kicked on right when I started talking. I can do it again if there's too much background noise."
Florence didn't answer.
She was sitting frozen on the couch, her hands covering her mouth. Her heart was hammering against her ribs.
She had just watched her boyfriend turn into a complete psychopath, and then turn back into her boyfriend as easily as flipping a light switch. It wasn't just a good impression. It was complete, terrifying immersion.
"Florence?" Daniel asked, standing up from the chair. He looked confused by her silence.
Florence slowly lowered her hands. "Daniel."
"Yeah?"
"Why the hell don't you act in your own movies?" Florence demanded, her voice loud in the quiet room. "You have the best directors in the world working for you. You have the money. Why are you hiding behind a monitor when you can do that?"
Daniel blinked, looking slightly taken aback by her intensity. He walked over to the camera and started unhooking it from the tripod.
"Hmm? Oh, it's because I don't have the time for it," Daniel said casually, as if they were discussing what to have for dinner. "Acting requires a completely different type of focus. When I direct, I have to see the entire board. I have to worry about the lighting, the budget, the camera angles, the other actors. If I immerse myself in a character like that, I can't do my job as a director. It's too distracting."
He set the camera on the coffee table.
"I might act eventually," Daniel mused, looking at the ceiling. "Maybe when the studio has enough reliable directors in the bullpen that it doesn't need my constant attention to keep functioning. But right now, it's just a party trick."
Florence stared at him. He was standing there with greasy green hair, white paint flaking off his cheeks, and a terrifying red scar painted across his mouth, talking about studio logistics.
A massive, overwhelming wave of affection and anticipation hit her.
They had been together for almost two years. They lived together. They worked together. And yet, he still managed to completely surprise her. She was still discovering these deep, hidden wells of talent inside of him. The fact that he was this incredibly gifted, and just casually chose not to use it because he was busy building an empire for other people... she found it infinitely attractive.
Florence didn't care about the greasepaint.
She stood up, crossed the short distance between them, and tackled him.
Daniel stumbled backward, laughing in surprise as Florence wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. The thick white and red greasepaint immediately smeared across her own face, transferring from his cheeks to her nose and chin.
"You are ridiculous," Florence said, pulling back slightly, her hands tangled in his green hair. She was grinning from ear to ear, looking like a messy clown herself. "You just keep getting infinitely hotter to me. It's actually a problem."
"I'm wearing clown makeup," Daniel pointed out, his hands resting on her waist.
"I don't care," Florence said, kissing him again. "Post the video. Post it right now."
Daniel laughed, pulling his phone out of his sweatpants pocket. He wirelessly transferred the short video file from the camera to his phone. He didn't add any filters. He didn't edit the audio to make it sound deeper. He just uploaded the raw, one-minute clip simultaneously to his Twitter and Instagram accounts.
He typed a very simple caption.
Nice trend, Jonah. #DarkKnightChallenge
He hit post, locked his phone, and tossed it onto the couch.
"Alright, the deed is done," Daniel said, picking Florence up entirely and throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She shrieked, laughing loudly. "Now we have to go spend an hour scrubbing industrial greasepaint out of our pores."
They walked down the hall toward the bathroom, completely ignoring the phone sitting on the sofa.
If Daniel had looked at the screen, he would have seen the notification counter freeze, glitch, and then begin spinning so fast the numbers blurred.
---
It took exactly twelve minutes for the internet to break.
Daniel Miller had millions of followers, but his accounts were usually dead, automated feeds of corporate press releases. The sudden appearance of a raw, personal video, especially one directly participating in a viral trend, triggered every algorithm on the platforms.
By the time Daniel and Florence were done washing their faces, the video had surpassed five million views. An hour later, it hit twenty million.
The entertainment blogs and news sites scrambled to write articles before the sun even came up.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
HEADLINE: DANIEL MILLER HIJACKS WARNER BROS. MARKETING CAMPAIGN WITH TERRIFYING JOKER AUDITION
In a move that is either a brilliant display of acting talent or a masterful, petty strike against a rival studio, Miller Studios head Daniel Miller posted his first-ever personal video on social media last night. Participating in the viral #DarkKnightChallenge, Miller delivered a one-minute performance of the Joker's famous interrogation scene. The internet's verdict is unanimous: Miller just out-acted the entire trend. More stingingly for Warner Bros., critics and fans alike are already pointing out that Miller's quiet, chillingly grounded interpretation of the Clown Prince of Crime is infinitely better than the loud, obnoxious, and cartoonish Joker the studio actually cast for their blockbuster. Is it possible the greatest director of his generation is also hiding a generational acting talent?
On Reddit, the main r/movies board was in absolute chaos. The video had been pinned to the top of the subreddit and had over thirty thousand comments.
User DirectorFanBoy: Holy shit. I thought this was a deepfake at first. Look at his eyes. He literally looks like a dead man walking. I've watched this twenty times.
User GothamKnights: Okay, I'm a massive WB defender, but we have to admit defeat here. WB gave us that loud, obnoxious, screaming clown in the actual movie, and Daniel Miller just gave us a genuinely terrifying psychopath while sitting in his living room wearing sweatpants. Daniel's version is infinitely better. He won.
User CelluloidDreamer: Wait, why doesn't he act in his own movies? If he can do this casually on a Friday night, why wasn't he playing the villain in Star Wars?
User ScriptKiddie: "Nice trend, Jonah." The absolute disrespect in the caption is sending me. He just took WB's biggest marketing push, showed them how their own villain was supposed to be played, and made it all about himself. Daniel Miller is a menace.
But nowhere was the reaction more violently enthusiastic than on the dedicated forums of the "Miller Muses," the incredibly loud, heavily female fanclub dedicated entirely to thirsting over the young director.
The main forum page was a complete meltdown of all-caps posting and reaction images.
Thread: DANIEL. JOKER. MAKEUP. I AM UNWELL.
User StarstruckGirl: I AM BARKING AT THE MOON. DID YOU SEE THE LIP SMACK? DID YOU SEE THE WAY HE SLUMPED HIS SHOULDERS? I need an ambulance.
User FlorenceIsSoLucky: I used to think he was just the quiet, brooding genius type. Now I know he can act like a completely unhinged psychopath and I am somehow MORE attracted to him. Help me.
User CinemaQueen: If he does not cast himself as the lead villain in whatever movie he makes next, we riot. I am dead serious. We show up to the Burbank gates with pitchforks. Look at the messy green hair. Look at the eye contact. I am looking disrespectfully.
User MidnightScribe: Girls, the fact that Florence Pugh was probably sitting right there watching him do this... I would simply pass out. He needs to act. Immediately.
The video continued to spread like a wildfire, entirely escaping the bounds of the original trend. People weren't talking about The Dark Knight sequel or Warner Bros' casting choices anymore. They were talking about Daniel Miller.
Jonah Gantry had wanted to create a viral moment to sell tickets.
Instead, he had just accidentally given the entire world a one-minute trailer for a movie star who hadn't even debuted yet, while simultaneously reminding everyone that WB had completely botched their own villain.
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A/N: Read ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/AmaanS