9 Upcoming Movies That Are Unofficial Remakes
9. Joker = The King Of Comedy
The gritty first trailer for Todd Phillips' Joker dropped just recently, and in addition to presenting a wholly unique cinematic origin story for the Clown Prince of Crime (Joaquin Phoenix), it made clear beyond all doubt where Phillips will be drawing his primary influences from.
The tone and aesthetic is extremely similar to Martin Scorsese's brilliant 1982 black comedy The King of Comedy, in which a deranged, failed stand-up comedian (Robert De Niro) stalks and eventually kidnaps his talk show host idol (Jerry Lewis) in the hope of furthering his own career.
The King of Comedy in many ways feels like the perfect blueprint for a "realistic" Joker origin story, and as such it makes sense that Joker similarly follows a struggling, mentally ill comedian who resorts to a life of crime.
If that isn't compelling enough proof of shared DNA between the projects, Joker will also be executive produced by Scorsese himself, and De Niro is co-starring as a talk show host, homaging his own role in Scorsese's film.
Given the generally heightened nature of movies starring The Joker, filtering the iconic villain through the hard-nosed prism of a Scorsese movie sounds just perfect, honestly.
If you're gonna lift the style, tone and premise from another movie, you may as well make it a venerated masterpiece.