When Joker hits theaters this October, you can be sure that both fans and critics will be comparing Joaquin Phoenix’s performance to the seminal turn given by the late, great Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. It’s interesting, then, that director Todd Phillips has jumped the gun and has already admitted that his movie has something in common with Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Batman flick.
It’s not the fact that both feature the Clown Prince of Crime, though, but that they have similar themes and messages. As per Games Radar, Phillips explains that he wanted to make a movie that “is not meant to be political, but it is meant to be provocative.” In this way, he thinks Joker can be compared to The Dark Knight and its discussion of terrorism.
“I think there will be some 21-year-olds that go and watch it who just think it’s a version of a Joker story. And that’s fine, too. I don’t want to define it as this message movie, because it’s not. But it definitely is, the same way that The Dark Knight was not a message movie, but it definitely was a post-9/11 terrorist sort of ‘Oh shit…’ thing.”
Of course, this is the second time this year that a filmmaker has compared their superhero movie to The Dark Knight, and the first one was Dark Phoenix. Even fans of the final X-Men movie have to admit that it didn’t live up to the heights of the genre that director Simon Kinberg was teasing it would hit, so we might not want to get too excited about Phillips’ Joker comments just yet.
That said, Joker has impressed fans and critics with its trailers so far, with early reports pointing to Phoenix giving a stellar performance and possibly being in with a chance of an Oscar nom. We’ll get to judge for ourselves though how close to The Dark Knight the film is in terms of quality when it arrives in cinemas on October 4th.
