Joker director Todd Phillips has released a fresh batch of behind-the-scenes photos, featuring himself alongside Joaquin Phoenix on the set of the year’s biggest R-rated film.
The Clown Prince of Crime’s new solo outing has been met with much controversy ever since it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival back in August, but that hasn’t stopped the pic from becoming one of the DC brand’s most profitable features to date.
On an estimated budget of $55 million, Joker has so far grossed a global total of $737.5 million. Worldwide, this makes Phillips’ film the current eighth highest grossing movie of the year, though you can expect it to pass the $758.8 million figure boasted by Hobbs & Shaw soon enough.
What’s more, this weekend has seen Joker blow past Logan, The Passion of the Christ and It to become the fourth highest grossing R-rated flick of all time, and at this rate, there’s a good chance the movie will beat out The Matrix Reloaded and the two Deadpool films to claim the top spot on that list.
Meanwhile, news continues to emerge about the resistance that Joker received before the film even went into production. According to a recent article from The Hollywood Reporter, for instance, there were people at Warner Bros. who were hoping that the feature’s relatively small budget would prevent the movie from getting made in the first place.
On top of that, it was reported that Suicide Squad actor Jared Leto wasn’t happy to hear that someone else was playing the Clown Prince, and even went as far as trying to get the project killed. Nonetheless, Phillips’ film went on to become a bona fide box office smash, not to mention a popular conversation-starter, and as we move into awards season, don’t be surprised if Joker remains a prominent subject in the pop culture discourse.