Joker Origin Movie Announced

[Dr Quinch]

My initial gut reaction is that this is a terrible idea because it destroys the mystery of the character, but I guess it might work as long as they don't reveal his real name: http://deadline.com/2017/08/the-joke...se-1202154053/

[Sighphi]

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.

Elseworlds? Ok.

There are so many characters they can bring to film yet they are stuck with the same handful.

An intriguing part is the setting. 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

This sounds like Burton's Batman.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

We had one that is nearly 30 years old, and I love that one.

[Midvillian1322]

If its a a netflix or HBO mini series or film id be excited. But if your gonna do a theatricalfilm not part of the DCEU use characters who wont appear in the DCEU. I dont think it will confuse the audience its a simple concept, but i do think it can over saturate the markey if they are making elseworlds with charatcers currently getting heavy use in the DCEU. Especialy if this joker is good, it will reflect badly on DCEU joker.

[Kirby101]

What a terrible idea. It will be as bad as the Suicide Squad.

[numberthirty]

Is this like the Batman movie that keeps on turning into something other than what it was initially going to be?

[Ilan Preskovsky]

What a stupid idea. If there's one DC character that we don't need to know the origin of, it's the Joker. Even Alan Moore intentionally left the Joker's origin purposefully vague by having Joker be a notoriously unrelaible narrator in the Killing Joke. And, though I like Burton's Batman, this was one aspect of the movie that really, really didn't work.

[Frontier]

My only question is if Jared Leto is in it, because my enthusiasm is very dependent on whether or not he is .

[Za Waldo]

Elseworlds? Ok.

There are so many characters they can bring to film yet they are stuck with the same handful.



This sounds like Burton's Batman.

Nothing about that really sounds like the Burton movie. I see "gritty and grounded" in there and I think Nolan Batman, not the fantastic retroish world of Baurton's Batman. '80s just makes me think it'll have red and blue lighting or something, so maybe someone will finally light a Batman movie like the original coloring of The Killing Joke, or Batman Year One...but more likely Killing Joke given the subject.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

What a stupid idea. If there's one DC character that we don't need to know the origin of, it's the Joker. Even Alan Moore intentionally left the Joker's origin purposefully vague by having Joker be a notoriously unrelaible narrator in the Killing Joke. And, though I like Burton's Batman, this was one aspect of the movie that really, really didn't work.

That's kind of overplayed. He wasn't notoriously unreliable. He literally made that one multiple choice line. Joker's had origins.

[Jim Kelly]

At this early stage, I can't get worked up about this one way or the other. It could be a positive move that DC/Warner is going to open a branch of their franchise for making movies that break the rules. If you look at the whole history of DC movies, they've done better when they didn't try to follow the Marvel style but let each movie be its own thing, regardless of how it fit in with anything else.

And maybe the Flashpoint movie or the ending of JUSTICE LEAGUE will establish an in-universe reason for infinite earths within the extended DC movie empire.

Of course, this could blow up in their face. But even there, if a movie is going to bomb, it's better that it has no connection to anything else. It's really a success that creates a problem for Warner, because the DCEU movies would have a hard time monopolizing on that success. That was the problem with THE DARK KNIGHT--it was so self-contained that it wasn't easy to attach any other DC movies to it.

But I see how they probably came up with this idea through reverse engineering. They wanted to do some kind of crime drama and seeing the fad for 1980s style movies, they wanted to do a Scorsese type of crime drama. Then they realized that comic book movies are a good sell and, looking at those movies, they saw that THE DARK KNIGHT is like an '80s crime drama, but with costumes. And who is in that movie? Joker. Ah! so if they sell their idea as a Joker movie, the studio will let them make their crime drama. Bingo.

[Jokerz79]

I posted this in the DCEU Thread much like Michael Myers I like my Joker origin to be a mystery that's when I'm happier so I'm out on this unless I hear it's amazing or something which I don't have faith it will be.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

So no explanation for the tattoos the DCEU version has?

[Ilan Preskovsky]

That's kind of overplayed. He wasn't notoriously unreliable. He literally made that one multiple choice line. Joker's had origins.

Yeah, I didn't read it that way entirely. Between the fact that a) he wasn't sure exactly what happened and that b) he's a total nutjob, it's easy to imagine that the whole thing might just be in his head.

Though, on the other hand, that doesn't play into the whole "one bad day" thing that is supposed to be a link between Batman and the Joker. Though, again, maybe that's just him creating a connection to Batman.

I'm also not entirely clear just how "in continuity" the Killing Joke was supposed to be. Between the Mature Readers rating, the prestige format and the possibility that Batman kills Joker at the end, it feels a bit more like Moore doing his own thing then DC bringing it in line with then-current continuiy. Or, you know, maybe not.

Either way, I think spending loads of time on the Joker's origins loses much of what is great about the character. And, yeah, if it is Jared Let's Joker then they have bigger problems to overcome. He's a fine actor but his Joker was a trainwreck.

[JBatmanFan05]

As others have said, such a stupid idea. It almost seems like a deliberate attempt to do the opposite of a good idea. Like a troll or something.