Joker might have been a bigger success than Warner Brothers had anticipated. Grossing $93.5 million in its opening weekend – the biggest October premiere ever – Todd Phillips’ slow-burn original origin story has (metaphorically) taken the world by storm.
Despite the several avenues of controversy the film has paved out, the audience reaction seems to be incredibly positive. Currently sitting at a 90% fan-approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Joker is also (at the time of writing) the 9th highest-ranking movie of all time on IMDb, with a score of 8.8.
With all the accolades the pic has gathered thus far – including the top prize at the Venice Film Festival – executives at WB are surely looking towards the future. And sources close to We Got This Covered – the same ones who revealed that Jonah Hill would be in The Batman, Black Adam will be in Shazam! 3 and that Tom Welling was returning for “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” all of which are now confirmed – have told us that their plans include a solo Mr. Freeze picture.
No, Arnold Schwarzenegger will more than likely not be reprising his iconically campy performance and from what we understand, this film, if it comes to be (it’s only in the early development stages right now), will be taking the same set of steps Joker did, with a story set outside the DCEU. While Victor Fries has yet to pop up in the cinematic universe, we can expect that whatever actor decides to pick up the role in this project will, like Phoenix, not be involved in any other superhero pics.
Surely, Joker‘s grim atmosphere contributed to its success – bringing into the spotlight the great Scorsese loner films like Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy – and in that respect, a Mr. Freeze movie could very easily tap into that same arena of darkness.
As most Batman fans know, Victor, obsessed with finding the cure to his wife’s terminal cancer, was engulfed by cryogenic coolants and rage. We don’t know to what extent WB will tamper with the villain’s setup for this movie, but if a Mr. Freeze project is green-lit, there’d surely be a lot of room to explore that tragedy.
