Joaquin Phoenix‘s Joker movie made an impact – a seldom thing nowadays for a DC movie – with the release of their teaser trailer a few weeks back. And the villain will be gracing the cover of this August issue of Empire Magazine.
Todd Phillips, the writer-director of Joker, goes on record in his Empire interview to divulge his version of the clown prince of crime is not based on the comics.
We didn’t follow anything from the comic-books, which people are gonna be mad about. We just wrote our own version of where a guy like Joker might come from. That’s what was interesting to me. We’re not even doing Joker, but the story of becoming Joker. It’s about this man.
Todd philips on “joker” movie (empire interview)
This seems rather contrived, or rather not as thoroughly explained. Sure the character won’t be based on one version of the Joker, but surely research was done, and the spirit of the character hinges on the mythos created by over seven decades and iterations of the character. Better say “loosely based” than not based at all.
Joker is slated for cinematic release come October 4, 2019