2017 has been a strange year for a lot of us, and today’s news has only added to that. Deadline is reporting that Warner Bros. is working a new Joker project. This news in and of itself is not overly surprising. But, as we dig more into this announcement, one can’t help but be confused and weary of the potential success of this project. Let’s go through this story piece by piece and together maybe we’ll all come to a better understanding of what happened today.
Warner Bros and DC are in the early stages of another Batman Universe spinoff movie, this one telling the origin story of the signature villain The Joker. The studio has set The Hangover‘s Todd Phillips to co-write a script with 8 Mile scribe Scott Silver. Phillips will direct the movie, and Martin Scorsese will produce it with Phillips. This will be the first film under a new banner that has yet to be named in which WB can expand the canon of DC properties and create unique storylines with different actors playing the iconic characters.
Already I am filled with a ton of questions. Why is Scorsese involved with this? Why is Todd Phillips in the director’s chair? Warner has struggled in their existing cinematic universe so why are they attempting to launch a second one? I do think the whole project sounds interesting if not a little problematic. I mean, Multiple universes can be annoying and confusing in comic books. In film? that seems like an idea that’s likely to be DOA. I do like Todd Phillips filmography quite a bit though and he definitely is an interesting choice. Unfortunately he hardly feels right for this, unless the movie will take a pointedly comedic tone. You know what readers? i’m sure things will become much more clear if we press forward to the end.
I’m told that the intention is to make an origin story that isn’t part of any other iteration… [The Joker] was most recently played by Jared Leto in the first Suicide Squad film. He will reprise in the Suicide Squad sequel and the Harley Quinn spinoff, but this new film will launch the character with a different actor, possibly younger… the intention is to make a gritty and grounded hard-boiled crime film set in early-’80s Gotham City that isn’t meant to feel like a DC movie as much as one of Scorsese’s films from that era, like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull or The King Of Comedy.
So, this new DC universe will be an “elseworlds” thing, which could mean that we will have the Scorsese/Phillips Joker movie coming out 6 months after Leto’s Joker appears in Suicide Skawd 2. In theory, like so many things, this sounds awesome. In practice, I think it could spell disaster for the studio. I mean, the average movie goer didn’t realize ‘Spider-man: Homecoming’ wasn’t a sequel to the Andrew Garfield films. There’s no way people won’t be confused by different Jokers running around fighting multiple Batmans(Batmen?).
Finally there’s the issue of the setting. I think everyone can agree that 70’s & 80’s era Scorsese made some brilliant films. They are, however, not what I think of as the basis for great comic book movies. it should also be noted, that this idea of “Gritty” Gotham goes in the face of the stories from last year that said DC is planning on lightening up their films. Once again, we have an example of this major studio really seeming like they are trying to do too many things at once, and going in too many directions at once.
I’ve been a fan of capes for a long time and, like most, Batman and his rogues gallery was my first entrance into the world of the super. I took no delight in hating Suicide Squad & BvS: Dawn of Justice. I take no delight in thinking Justice League looks like a muted, muddled mess. There’s a ton of talented filmmakers involved with this and I hope i’m wrong, But a Joker origin that no one has asked for, set in a completely different universe than the Joker we already have, by way of Travis Bickle seems like a strange idea that’s unlikely to work; in 2017 or any year.
