This Joker Is Not Your Regular Batman Villain
The buzz is all about the upcoming movie Joker. Joaquin Phoenix’s spin on the quintessential Batman villain is unlike anything audiences have ever seen. It is said that it is not like the ‘standard comic book movie releases’. It is rather getting the rollout of an Oscar contender with high-profile premieres at the most prestigious fall film festivals — Venice and Toronto.
They don’t like comic book movies! Yet they’re up to making one!!
We know Maron confessed on Conan’s show that he dislikes Comic Book Movies. Now, AP News reports there is yet another person in the crew of Joker who is not a fan of Comics. She is the producer of the movie itself- Emma Tillinger Koskoff. She confesses “It’s not my preferred genre –the comic book genre. I literally can’t watch those movies. I try but I can’t. I should, but I can’t. But I love this movie. Even if I didn’t work on this movie I would love this movie.”
Lots of Action, they say. Standing ovation, they say. How???
On 31st August, at the Venice Film Festival the audience who witnessed the press screenings and the film’s world premiere seemed to have an unflinching portrayal of action scenes and the film earned an eight-minute standing ovation!
The allure can be credited to Joaquin Phoenix’s character study as opposed to a series of events. It is in his unique approach to the man who would become the Clown Prince of Crime.
“For me what the attraction to make this film, this character, was that we were going to approach it in our own way,” Phoenix said during a Saturday press conference hosted by the Venice Film Festival. “So for me, I didn’t refer to any past iterations of the character. It was just something that felt like it was our creation in some ways and I think that’s what was really important for me and key to it.”
That’s a comic book thing. Not necessary ours have to be.
Writer-director Todd Phillips emphasized that it was important to distance the comic book industry from movie-making when working on an adaptation. As he pointed out, this was important when dealing with Joker’s origin. “He doesn’t fall into a vat of acid and come out laughing,” Phillips said. “That’s a comic book thing.” Still, Phillips reassured fans that it doesn’t mean liking comic books is a bad thing, and that we need many interpretations.
“What we’re trying to do with this film is, do something entirely different from the comic book movies that have come before. And not because those aren’t cool but just because we want to try something different,” he said.
In the end, it really takes all viewpoints to tell a good story, with people who don’t even like a certain genre still finding ways of mastering the craft. Reviews on the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes are currently running a score of 88% from 33 counted reviews. Joker opens October 4.
