Whenever characters from our childhood are interpreted differently, or altered to be a bit more “adult,” there will always be people who get defensive of the old ways. That’s pretty much the entire conversation surrounding Quentin Tarantino’s potential R-rated Star Trek movie at the moment.
But one character that you wouldn’t think that we’d see this happen to is the Joker. After all, the Clown Prince of Crime’s always been a horrific menace, sometimes funny, and in his best form, fully terrifying. So, the confirmation that Todd Phillips’ interesting-looking and upcoming film would be rated R was met with a lot of excitement.
That being said, there’s still a big pocket of the fanbase who feel the hard R’s unnecessary, believing that the director’s taking too many liberties with the source material. But from what he’s said in recent interviews, Phillips doesn’t seem too worried about what they think and in fact, he already knows that his film is going to anger people.
“We didn’t follow anything from the comic-books, which people are gonna be mad about,” the director explains. “We just wrote our own version of where a guy like Joker might come from. That’s what was interesting to me. We’re not even doing Joker, but the story of becoming Joker. It’s about this man.”
From what we know so far, the pic will take place in 1981, a year in which crime runs rampant in Gotham City and Thomas Wayne wants to clean it up by becoming mayor. Phoenix will star as Arthur Fleck, the man who’ll eventually become the Joker but starts off as a clown by day and stand up comedian by night, before suffering a nervous breakdown which results in the death of several Wall Street brokers.
Of course, Joker is also filled with all sorts of twists and turns, which only makes sense given that it focuses on a character that’s known for his shattered psyche. There’ve been rumblings that Joaquin Phoenix could snag an Oscar nomination for his take on the villain, too, and we’ll find out if Phillips’ pic lives up to the hype when the movie arrives on October 4th.