The Clown Prince of Crime is finally getting his own solo movie. After playing second fiddle in last year’s Suicide Squad, the Joker will be the star of an upcoming movie by DC and Warner Bros. Surprisingly though, DC have thrown a curveball and will be taking audiences back in time to the 1980s. For the Joker will be gracing cinema screens in an origin story.
Deadline have reported that director Todd Phillips (The Hangover) and writer Scott Silver (8 Mile, The Fighter) will be going back to the very beginning to tell the tale of the origin story of Batman’s greatest villain. Interestingly, this movie will be the first film under a new, currently unnamed, banner in which “WB can expand the canon of DC properties and create unique storylines with different actors playing the iconic characters.”
So that means Jared Leto, the controversial choice for the Joker in Suicide Squad, will not be reprising his role. Instead a different actor will take on the mantle, perhaps a younger actor. What’s most intriguing about this new film is the fact that Martin Scorsese will be producing. The legendary director’s influence is already seemingly felt in the setting of this movie. They are reportedly aiming to make a down and dirty 80s crime film in Gotham, more in the vein of Scorsese’s work than any current DC movie property.
Phillips and Silver are already writing the script but there is no timeline as of yet for when the movie will be released.
With so many movies in development at Warner Bros. the main fear is of oversaturation or simply confusion. A new banner which doesn’t abide by the current timeline opens up new exciting opportunities in the same way the Elseworlds comics did, but it also may over-complicate the already quite confusing DC Extended Universe.
As well as the origin story, The Joker will be appearing in the Suicide Squad sequel and the Harley Quinn spinoff which are currently in the works.
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