Joaquin Phoenix’s ‘Joker’ Wins Golden Lion Prize At Venice Film Festival

Joker Joaquin Phoenix Todd Phillips Warner Bros Venom Rey Mysterio Avengers Endgame Watchmen SAG Oscar

Joker ended up becoming the breakout critical favorite at the 2019 Venice Film Festival thanks to Joaquin Phoenix’s critically-acclaimed performance, and now the movie has received the top honor with the Golden Lion Prize.

On the official Twitter page for the Joker movie, it’s been revealed that Joaquin Phoenix’s take on the iconic supervillain has made off with a very prestigious award ahead of its wide release next month. This ought to give Todd Phillips, DC Films, and the already-widely-recognized Joaquin Phoenix, plenty to smile about.

You can see the official announcement below.

Joker, which has no connections to DC’s shared universe of movies, serves as a homage to movies like Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, with Joaquin Phoenix playing the part of a jaded, damaged protagonist as he slips down an increasingly criminal path. The movie exists in a much more grounded version of the standard Batman mythos, where there aren’t supervillains, but there are people who dress up like clowns and riot. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance has been especially praised as a unique take on the character that is able to work efficiently without Batman or other superheroes to counter him.

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 fractured society. 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, Zazie Beetz, Bill Camp, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Douglas Hodge, Marc Maron, Josh Pais, and Shea Whigham.

Joker will be released in theaters on October 4, 2019. Stay tuned for the latest news on the Joaquin Phoenix movie!

Source: Twitter