The Joker Movie: Todd Phillips Reveals Joaquin Phoenix's Clown Prince Of Crime
Have you ever had one bad day?
No one may truly know what's going on with Warner Bros.' DC Extended Universe, what with Ben Affleck and now Henry's Cavill's back-and-forth commitment to their roles as Batman and Superman respectively, but one film that definitely seems to have found its own identity is Todd Phillips' Joker Origin Movie, which stars Joaquin Phoenix as the titular Clown Prince.
In the weeks following the announcement that the Old Country for Old Men star would be playing the role, fans set their minds to developing various pieces of fan art imagining what his Joker would look like. Curtesy of Phillips, however, they won't have to do so anymore, as the director took to Instagram overnight to show off Joaquin during filming.
Phillips also decided to clue audiences in on the character's real name - 'Arthur'. The Joker has, of course, used many aliases over the years, but most have always involved a 'J' somewhere (Jack Napier, Jack White etc.), so it's something of a departure for this incarnation to omit the letter entirely.
But it wasn't just Phillips who took to social media in an effort to illuminate the film's production. Twitter user JNAPIER uploaded a video from the set showing 'Arthur' getting into a disagreement with a very sullen looking clown. Obviously we don't know the context behind this particular sequence, but given that the film is said to be taking major cues from Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's The Killing Joke - even going so far as to use its 1980s setting - it's likely that Arthur is experiencing difficulty breaking into comedy (and we all know how that ends).
In any case, moviegoers can expect DC's untitled Joker Origin Movie to release sometime next year. Phillips is currently looking for an actor to replace Alec Baldwin in the role of Thomas Wayne, and while details are still relatively hard to come by, both Zazie Beetz and Marc Maron are confirmed to have key roles too, in what WB reportedly hope to be the first of many 'DC Dark' films to come.