The Joker is more than just Batman’s most infamous enemy. He’s also one of comics’ most iconic villains, with a long history of memorable portrayals on both the big screen and television. More than 30 years after Jack Nicholson portrayed the Clown Prince of Crime in Tim Burton’s Batman and a decade after Heath Ledger’s award-winning turn as the maniacal villain in The Dark Knight, Joaquin Phoenix will star in Joker, a solo feature intended to provide the character with a new cinematic origin story.
Three-time Academy Award nominee Phoenix is set to star in Joker as the titular villain, with The Hangover director Todd Phillips behind the camera. Scheduled to hit theaters October 4, 2019, the film also boasts a high-profile cast that includes an Academy Award winner and a story that’s expected to diverge significantly from DC Comics lore.
Here’s everything we know about the Joker movie so far.
- Title: Joker
- Release date: October 4, 2019
- Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert DeNiro, Zazie Beetz, Marc Maron
- Director: Todd Phillips
The rating
In June, Joker director Todd Phillips confirmed what anyone following development on the film had assumed: The movie will be rated “R” when it hits theaters.
The confirmation came via Phillips’ response to a comment on a photo he posted to Instagram.
“It will be Rated R,” wrote Phillips. “I’ve been asked this a lot. Just assumed people knew. Sorry.”
The first trailer
The first trailer for Joker was released in April, offering a preview of the tone of the film and the spin on the character that Phillips and Phoenix are intending to take.
One thing seems certain: This won’t be the Clown Prince of Crime that DC Comics readers are accustomed to.
The poster
A day before Joker‘s first teaser trailer was released, Phillips shared a poster that depicts Phoenix’s supervillain in all of his glory. The one-sheet shows Phoenix in full makeup gazing toward the sky and offers our first look at Joker‘s official log and its tagline, “Put on a happy face.”
Filming
As first reported by Deadline, Joker began shooting in September 2018. The first unofficial photo from the set of the film found its way online shortly thereafter, and it featured Joaquin Phoenix interacting with … wait for it … a clown.
It looks like Joaquin Phoenix has started filming as the Joker for the standalone #Joker movie! https://t.co/0uwG4l34o0
— JustJared.com (@JustJared) September 16, 2018
Several Hollywood heavyweights are among the project’s production crew, including cinematographer — and former Phillips collaborator — Lawrence Sher (War Dogs), designer Mark Friedberg (Selma), and casting director Shayna Markowitz (Ocean’s 8).
Filming ended in early December 2018, capping off a quick and intense shoot. In an interview with MTV News, actress Zazie Beetz revealed Phillips re-wrote the Joker script while the movie was filming. In addition, Joaquin Phoenix lost so much weight for the production that re-shoots were more or less impossible, meaning that the crew had to get everything right the first time, while SAG-AFTRA representatives had to visit the set after extras complained about being locked in subway cars for extended periods of time, violating guild rules.
The cast
Although the story will focus on the origin of Joker, Bruce Wayne and the Wayne family’s famous butler, Alfred Pennyworth, will also play roles in the film. Douglas Hodge (Penny Dreadful) and young actor Dante Pereira-Olson (You Were Never Really Here) will reportedly play Alfred and a young Bruce Wayne in the film, according to ComicBookMovie.com.
Following in the footsteps of Nicholson, Ledger, and most recently Jared Leto, Her and Walk the Line star Joaquin Phoenix will play the title character in Joker, which will explore the time before he became one of DC Comics’ most terrifying villains.
“It feels unique, it is its own world in some ways, and maybe, mostly, it scares the [crap] out of me or something,” Phoenix told Collider in July 2018. “It might as well be the thing that scares you the most.”
Joining Phoenix in the cast is two-time Academy Award winner Robert DeNiro, who is expected to play a talk show host who plays a key role in sending Phoenix’s character down the dark path to becoming Joker.
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One actor who won’t be appearing in the film will be Academy Award nominee and three-time Primetime Emmy Award winner Alec Baldwin, who was initially reported to be playing Thomas Wayne, the father of the man who will become Batman, Bruce Wayne. However, just two days after being announced in the role, Baldwin told USA Today, “I’m no longer doing that movie,” citing “scheduling” issues.
Ghost Rider and Person of Interest actor Brett Cullen later joined the film in the role vacated by Baldwin. In a departure from DC Comics lore, the character of Thomas Wayne was rumored to be “a cheesy and tanned businessman … more in the mold of a 1980s Donald Trump” instead of a wealthy doctor and philanthropist.
In July, Atlanta and Deadpool 2 actress Zazie Beetz joined the film in another vaguely described role. Beetz will reportedly play “a single mother who catches the interest of the man who will become the Clown Prince of Crime.” In September, Phillips posted a photo of Beetz from the set of the film.
A flurry of casting reports in late July also added American Horror Story actress Frances Conroy and GLOW actor and comedian Marc Maron to the project. Conroy is expected to play the mother of Phoenix’s character, while Maron is rumored to be playing a booking agent for a talk show hosted by DeNiro’s character.
First look
There’s no certainty as to how Phoenix will look in full Joker makeup, but Phillips has teased audiences with one possible variation on the Clown Prince of Crime that puts the emphasis on “clown” in that title. The director posted a photo in late September featuring Phoenix in full clown makeup and costume from the set of the film.
We got our first peek at Phillips’ vision for The Joker on September 21, with the director posting a brief video on Instagram with Phoenix in traditional, clown-style makeup as the character — a significant departure from the look of past iterations of the character.
Just a short time after cameras began rolling on Joker, Phillips posted the first official photo of Phoenix in character for the film.
The story
Warner Bros. Pictures revealed a brief but official synopsis for Joker while announcing the start of filming on the movie in September 2018. The description of the film reads as follows: “Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck (Phoenix), a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale.”
The film will be set in Batman’s home city of Gotham in the 1980s, and based on a script penned by Phillips and Scott Silver (8 Mile). Early rumors indicated that Phoenix would play a stand-up comedian who turns to a life of crime — and one would assume, criminal insanity — when he reaches a breaking point in his life and career. DeNiro and Maron’s characters are expected to play a major role in that evolution from struggling comedian to Clown Prince of Crime.
Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke is rumored to be one of the primary inspirations for the film’s story. The comic, which is widely considered one of the greatest Joker stories ever told, established an origin for the character as a failed comedian who loses his wife and has his face disfigured during a botched robbery he undertakes in order to make ends meet.
The other Jokers
Although the Joker movie will tell an origin story of sorts for Batman’s notorious nemesis, the film won’t have any connection to the most recent version of the character to appear on the big screen.
Warner Bros. Pictures has indicated that Joker will exist in its own universe, separate from that of Jared Leto’s portrayal of the character in Suicide Squad. When Joker first entered production, Leto was still expected to return as Batman’s archenemy for a Harley Quinn team-up and the Suicide Squad sequel, but more recent reports indicate that those plans have been shelved and that Leto’s time behind the clown makeup might already be over.
Additionally, the Batman prequel series Gotham will debut its own take on the Clown Prince of Crime in its two-part series finale, which beings on April 18.
Updated on June 17, 2019: Confirmed the film’s R rating and added a new image.
