Ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Warner Bros has released the trailer for Joker. Joaquin Phoenix takes on Batman’s most famous foe. Todd Phillips directs the origin story and Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck, a failed stand-up comedian whose hardships in a Gotham City lead him to his insanity, and the eventual birth of the Joker.
The trailer also gives us a look at Robert De Niro asMurray Franklin. De Niro plays a talk show host who plays a key part in Arthur’s dark turn to the Joker.
Watch the trailer below:
Joker hits theaters worldwide on Oct. 4.
There’s Heath. There’s Jack. And then there’s nobody else that can come close. Why reboot this character when the definitive portrayal is already there.
In theory this movie should be pretty much my most anticipated film of the year: I’ve always dreamed of the idea that some studio would make a film in an action franchise that completely pushes the action element aside and would just make a character drama and Joaquin Phoenix is probably my favourite working male actor right now.
But so far, absolutely nothing about this is exciting me. Both trailers are just: “Phoenix has mental problems and is beaten at least 10 times in the first half of the movie, then he does something as the Joker”. Phillips is such a dull choice for a movie like this and this also shows in the trailers, which shows no promise of interesting visual expression. And if you’re going to actually break an action franchise out of the action genre for once, could you just try to not make the most “serious” thing or make it an outright The King of Comedy remake without even any new stylistic ideas seemingly, instead just going: “What if we remade The King of Comedy, make it look exactly like what The King of Comedy is in the heads of filmbros, like really just lay on thick that we’re doing a Scorsese homage and then just cross over the name “Rupert Pupkin” and instead write in block letters “JOKER””. You have an interesting platform to do something fresh and interesting with an incredibly versataile and brilliant actor, don’t waste it to make your stupid attempt copying a true master, especially since the people who generally want to copy this particular true master seem to have very selective memories about what this true master’s films are like.
Of course I’ll see the film and I’m not against the film already or anything like that but at the moment I’m not seeing why everybody seems to be so hyped about it and what about it is going to be so incredible
What’s your take on Snyder’s Watchmen? Who would have been your dream director choice for this project?
I’ve never actually seen Snyder’s Watchmen. I should get around to it
As for the director question, I have several different kinds of answers. Overall I feel like within this kind of story I’d want to see the broken person rather than heighten it up to be “how this person found his insane vision”, be in with what the character is feeling rather than see some kind of weird and seemingly quite straightforward social statment about how bleak the world is. In theory I weirdly feel like Fosse could have made the best version of this back in the day. But of modern directors, some pitches:
1) Bong Joon-ho: a Korean Bong Joon-ho film (as Snowpiercer and Okja prove that something kind of gets lost in translation) with all the tones that ensue. Set around the time that the main character becomes the Joker but that happening by the main character falling into a bucket of toxic waste (or whatever it is supposed to be). Starring perhaps Choi Min-sik and Song Kang-ho as his partner
2) Leos Carax: a movie where we spend time with the character after he has become the Joker on an absurd journey to someting, perhaps a heist would be involved. Starring Denis Lavant
3) Richard Ayoade: a film with more comedic tones about how society broke him and he lost touch with reality. This might sound similar to what this film seems to be but it would be much more comedic, the Joker would be much younger, and it wouldn’t be as focused on being a grand journey, rather looking at the main character as just another wheel in a mechanical society. Starring Caleb Landry Jones
4) Safdies: The Joker has already put on the makeup and is roaming through the streets of Gotham. Starring Willem Dafoe
5) Sion Sono: as heightened as can get. Starring Nicholas Cage
6) Andrea Arnold: what Arnold does best: harsh quiet character dramas about people being lost and attempting to fix their situation. Probably set on the edges of Gotham moreso than the center. Starring perhaps Josh O’Connor
7) Xavier Dolan (the one that probably is the most realistic in terms of what the studio might greenlight of these films): the youth of Joker: feelings of being confined, questions about identity, attempts to not fall into the darkness that calls him, ultimately failing. Starring Lucas Hedges
As for this particular version of the story, I feel like Ruben Östlund could really make the “this world is awful, here is a person trying to struggle through it” story work by ridiculing some of the seriousness of it.
But especially as most of these would be extremely unlikely (considering that at least two of those aren’t even in English and that even getting this version made supposedly took Phillips a lot of work and from what I’ve understood, he’s pretty beloved at Warner Bros.), maybe I want a new director, someone who just broke through to make whatever he/she wants, because I feel like a person like that who’s just given a character and an empty piece of paper could do something very interesting and unique. And I quess I want the scale to be smaller, this film looks like it’s trying to be a blockbuster while also trying to be the “dark, real version that you can’t get in blockbusters”, which is kind of absurd
Based on Star 80 alone, definitely.
I wanna give this the benefit of the doubt but so far in it for the lolZ
Best Actor looks like something like this in my opinion, in no order:
Leo
Phoenix
DeNiro
Driver
Bale
On the heels:
Pitt
Banderas
Jordan
Egerton
McKellen
Murphy
Kaluuya
I’d switch Murphy and Bale.
BTW, Supporting Actor is going to be a donnybrook, assuming it will be DeNiro (for Joker), Pacino, Pesci, Pitt, and the shock nod for RPatz
I don’t think DeNiro will be a double nom so I’m not predicting him in supporting but I could be wrong.
Once people make the King of Comedy connections more overt that could sweep him to that nom.
Thank god he’s at least TRYING to do real films again.
DeNiro hasn’t earned a nom for Best Actor since 1992 and Pacino since 1993, and I don’t see that changing this year unfortunately.
Calling this now, potential shock winner for Best Picture. As increasingly ugly as this country is becoming, hug it out pablum like Green Book ain’t happening this year. Phoenix is a lock for the Best Actor win, and De Niro as double nominee?
I don’t think he’s a lock for the win but he’s a lock for a nomination. Probably the frontrunner after this trailer but it’s too early to say lock to win. In my opinion anyway.
Sure, Adam Driver is probably the smarter play, but I’m telling you when the Jennifer Jason Leigh questions start getting asked about Marriage Story (I mean, come on, ScarJo is even rocking the same haircut), that’s going to get dicey quickly.
I don’t even think Driver is the frontrunner. I think the top three at this point are Phoenix, Driver, and DeNiro.
Driver’s on an amazing run to be sure.
I haven’t seen this much slo mo since John Woo in the 90s. But it really does look excellent. I think Phoenix is a shoo in for Best Actor which means him and Heath Ledger could win different categories playing the same character.
He would also become the first actor to get a lead nod for a comic book character.
Phoenix is a brilliant actor and I’m sure the performance will be great but I still have reservations about the film itself. The teaser looked excellent for sure but I can’t help but factor in Todd Phillips’s track record, he directed 10 feature films and they were all completely and utterly mediocre. We’ll see if this will be “lucky 11” for him in the end. That would be great but I’m not holding my breath, for now I remain cautiously optimistic. Very cautiously.
Double Oscar Winner Peter Farrelly agrees wholeheartedly with you.
Phillips is already an Oscar nominee, so one would think he at least has his foot in the door already or something similar, no?
Kinda but at the same does being one fifth of the Oscar nominated writing team behind Borat, suggest he will be able to direct a tragic yet brilliant character study for one of the most iconic characters in modern cinema ?
Oh I’m not saying that means anything for the film’s quality, just that him possibly getting nominated for it wouldn’t be a real shocker.
Yeah I was thinking of that parallel, too, but it isn’t exactly apples and oranges. Farrelly mostly stayed in his wheelhouse only this time around his buddy comedy schtick was classed up a little with a script that was actually funny and also had dramatic elements. For Phillips to go from his Hangover schtick to what is widely expected to be the tragic yet brilliant character study for an iconic cinematic character, feels like a much bigger reach. I would love to see a good Joker film so hopefully he will pull it off, but precedent isn’t on his side.
Side note : Two-time Oscar winner Peter Farrelly is one thing but two-time Oscar winner Nick Vallelonga ? Sure the likes of David Fincher, Ava DuVernay, Christopher Nolan, David Lynch, Joe Wright, Sarah Polley, Denis Villeneuve, Dee Rees, Mike Leigh, Todd Haynes, Paul Thomas Anderson can barely get the nominations but why not just give two Oscars to this random racist white guy ?
I think that’s slightly a mischaracterization of Phillips: things like War Dogs (and perhaps Due Date, I don’t remember) are dark (though far from brilliant) character studies that just happen to be packaged as comedies and where the comedic elements kind of highten the darker things about it, which is probably what this is kind of going for: dark, with spurts of humor that make it even more uncomfortable.
Let’s see…Fincher, Nolan, Wright, Polley, Villeneuve, Rees, Haynes, and P.T.A. didn’t make films in 2018, DuVernay’s Wrinkle in Time sucked hard, and Leigh’s Peterloo didn’t make a stateside splash until this past April.
So yeah, being a screenwriter and producer on a film the industry generally loved at the end of 2018 does pay off.