While speaking with Total Film he said, “One thing I will tell you: I would do anything with Joaquin, any day of the week,. There’s nobody like him. If he was willing to do it, and if people show up to this movie, and Warners came to us and said, ‘You know what? If you guys could think of something…’ Well, I have a feeling that he and I could think of something pretty cool.”
Joker is an oddity in the comic-book movie genre. It is budgeted at a modest 55 million dollars and it is likely to be more akin to a crime movie than other DC and Marvel movies with extensive CGI driven action scenes.
It is described as first and foremost a character study and is about a downtrodden comedian called Arthur Fleck who rises to become Gotham’s criminal mastermind.
The synopsis states, “Joker centers around the iconic arch-nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen. The exploration of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale.”
Todd Phillips has written the story with Oscar winner Scott Silver. Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, and Frances Conroy also star.
Joker releases on October 4.