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Joaquin Phoenix is the latest actor to don the Joker makeup and costume on the big screen following the likes of Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and Jared Leto. Joker will have its premiere at the Venice Film Festival and Joaquin Phoenix will be receiving the Tribute Actor Award at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, where Joker will also be screened.

After the Venice Film Festival, where Joker premiered, a fiery debate erupted over the movie’s nuanced depiction of a character not unlike the “involuntary celibates,” or incels, behind recent mass shootings. Suddenly, the film’s likeness to Taxi Driver reminded those with long memories that Scorsese’s 1976 film partially inspired the would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr., who shot Ronald Reagan in 1981. Variety called Joker “the rare comic book movie that expresses what’s happening in the real world,” but Richard Lawson, writing for Vanity Fair, expressed another common sentiment, that it might be “irresponsible propaganda for the very men it pathologizes.” In Venice, Joker took home best film, which likely would have been more controversial had Roman Polanski not won the Grand Jury Prize. “I didn’t imagine that it would be smooth sailing,” Phoenix says of the press reaction. “It’s a difficult film. In some ways, it’s good that people are having a strong reaction to it.”

Phoenix mostly wants to let the film speak for itself. “There’s so many different ways of looking at it,” Phoenix says of the Arthur Fleck/Joker character. “You can either say here’s somebody who, like everybody, needed to be heard and understood and to have a voice. Or you can say this is somebody that disproportionately needs a large quantity of people to be fixated on him. His satisfaction comes as he stands in amongst the madness.”

Joker is a 2019 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by Todd Phillips, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scott Silver. The film, based on DC Comics characters, stars Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker and provides a possible origin story for the character. Set in 1981, it follows Arthur Fleck, a failed clown and aspiring stand-up comedian whose descent into insanity and nihilism inspires a violent counter-cultural revolution against the wealthy in a decaying Gotham City. Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Bill Camp, Shea Whigham, and Marc Maron appear in supporting roles. Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, Joker was produced by Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Films in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, Bron Creative and Joint Effort.

Phillips conceived Joker in 2016 and wrote the script with Silver throughout 2017. The two were inspired by 1970s character studies and the films of Martin Scorsese (particularly Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy), who was initially attached to the project as a producer. The film loosely adapts plot elements from Batman: The Killing Joke (1988), but Phillips and Silver otherwise did not look to specific comics for inspiration. Phoenix became attached in February 2018 and was cast that July, while the majority of the cast signed on by August. Principal photography took place in New York City, Jersey City, and Newark, from September to December 2018. Joker is the first live-action theatrical Batman film to receive an R rating from the Motion Picture Association.

Joker had its world premiere at the 76th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2019, where it won the Golden Lion, and was released in the United States on October 4, 2019. While Phoenix's performance, the direction, visual style, editing, musical score, and cinematography were praised, the dark tone, portrayal of mental illness, and handling of violence divided opinions and generated concerns of inspiring real-life violence. Despite this, Joker was a box office success and set records for an October release. It grossed over $1 billion, the first R-rated film to do so, and became the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2019 during its theatrical run. The film also received numerous accolades. At the 92nd Academy Awards, it earned a leading 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, winning Best Actor for Phoenix and Best Original Score for Hildur Guðnadóttir.

Joker was intended to be a standalone film with no sequels, although Warner Bros. intended for it to launch DC Black, a line of DC Comics-based films unrelated to the DCEU with darker, more experimental material. While Phillips said in August 2019 that he would be interested in making a sequel, depending on the film's performance and if Phoenix is interested, he later clarified that "the movie's not set up to [have] a sequel. We always pitched it as one movie, and that's it." In October 2019, Phoenix spoke to Peter Travers of possibly reprising the role of Arthur, centering around Travers' asking of Phoenix if he considers Joker to be his "dream role." Phoenix stated, "I can't stop thinking about it ... if there's something else we can do with Joker that might be interesting," and concluded, "It's nothing that I really wanted to do prior to working on this movie. I don't know that there is [more to do] ... Because it seemed endless, the possibilities of where we can go with the character."

On November 20, 2019, The Hollywood Reporter reported that a sequel was in development, with Phillips, Silver, and Phoenix expected to reprise their duties; however, Deadline Hollywood reported the same day that The Hollywood Reporter's story was false and that negotiations had not even begun. Phillips responded to the reports by saying that he had discussed a sequel with Warner Bros. and it remained a possibility, but it was not in development. Phillips also confirmed that the then-upcoming film The Batman (2022) would not be set in the same continuity as Joker. During an interview with Variety at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Phillips expressed interest in a spin-off focusing on Batman, saying, "It's a beautiful Gotham. What I would like to see someone tackle is what Batman looks like from that Gotham. I'm not saying I'm going to do that. What was interesting to me about the inclusion of Batman in our movie was, 'What kind of Batman does that Gotham make?' That's all I meant by that." On May 5, 2021, The Hollywood Reporter reported that a Joker sequel was planned. On May 27, Phillips had reportedly signed on to write the script. In January 2022, Willem Dafoe expressed interest in appearing in the sequel.

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