Warner Bros. President of Worldwide Marketing Blaire Rich discussed the target audience for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker.
While not everyone agrees on the quality of the Joker, nearly all agree that the Joaquin Phoenix film is unlike most comic book-based films released in the past. This is largely due to Joker offering a relatively realistic and character-driven approach to the Clown Prince of Crime’s origin as opposed to the large-scale spectacle commonly associated with comic book films.
During a conversation with Variety, Warner Bros. President of Worldwide Marketing Blaire Rich discussed the marketing strategy for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker. As Rich explained, the marketing campaign for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker was able to focus on superhero fans and cinephiles because the film functioned as both a comic book film and a serious drama:
“As we were putting things out, of course we saw huge strength and affinities with comic book fans, with gamers. But we also had an entire campaign against cinephiles, people who like sophisticated films, people who go to arthouse movies. This is a movie that kind of functions on a lot of those levels. And I think that the movie just tapped a nerve.”
Blair Rich concluded her comment by noting that they were able to take a “minimalist” approach to the marketing for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker.
Here is the official synopsis for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker:
Director Todd Phillips “Joker” centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fracturedsociety. A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night…but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty, Arthur makes one bad decision that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty character study.
Directed by Todd Phillips from a script he co-wrote with Scott Silver, Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Bill Camp, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Douglas Hodge, Marc Maron, Josh Pais, and Shea Whigham.
Joker is now playing in theaters!
Source: Variety
