Warner Bros. released the teaser trailer for the upcoming DC Comics movie focusing on Batman’s most well-known villain: The Clown Prince of Crime himself! I don’t think anyone was expecting this random film starring Joaquin Phoenix as the failed stand-up comedian who “is driven insane and becomes a psychopathic murderer.”
From the trailer, it seems like the film will be making Joker a more sympathetic character as it shows his descent into darkness. I’m not really on board with that… I hate the need we have to turn our villains into people we feel like we should feel bad for. Sometimes a villain should just be a villain.
Obviously, this is an origin tale for Joker that’s going to take a bit of a left turn from what comic fans are used to. Most people relate Joker’s origin with Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke – where Joker tells a tale that MAY HAVE caused him to become a psychopathic villain – which makes the character’s origin inextricably tied to Batman. That probably won’t happen here. Maybe, at best, we get a Bat-symbol in the sky toward the end of the film.
But even beyond that, it looks like director Todd Phillips has a pretty good film on his hands here.