Chilling Concept Art Shows Us What Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker May Look Like

Joaquin Phoenix has officially inherited Jared Leto’s title as the Clown Prince of Crime (for now).

Late yesterday evening, Warner Bros. issued the green light on Todd Phillips solo Joker movie, which currently has Joaquin Phoenix attached to star as Batman’s greatest ever villain.

Said to be “darker and more experimental in tone and content” than previous iterations, the announcement generated a ton of buzz online, where DC fans celebrated the addition of Phoenix to Warner’s superhero slate. He’s a multi-award-winning actor whose range is almost unparalleled, so we’re very excited to see Joaquin Phoenix at the forefront of an “experimental” DC origins movie that’s all about The Joker.

And now that the news is officially official, BossLogic has drawn up a piece of concept art that imagines Joaquin Phoenix in the title role. And it’s damn near perfect.

Todd Phillips is directing this one from a script he co-wrote, and though the finer details of the Joker’s next big screen outing remain locked away in the vaults of Gotham, Warner Bros. has pitched the project as an “exploration of a man disregarded by society [that] is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale.”

Chances are The Killing Joke will be mined for inspiration, too, and with an actor of Joaquin Phoenix’s caliber on the masthead, we imagine that this project will continue to gain a lot of traction as the weeks wear on.

Tethered with a budget of $55 million and more expectations than we can count, the Joaquin Phoenix-fronted Joker movie is officially headed for a production start this fall. And with any luck, we may just learn more about it next week at Comic-Con.