‘Joker’ Director Todd Phillips Reveals DC Black Label May Not Be Happening Yet

Joker Joaquin Phoenix Robert De Niro Marc Maron Total Film Todd Phillips Durex Gary Glitter Martin Scorsese Oscar BAFTA

Joker director Todd Phillips has offered fans an update regarding Warner Bros. and DC Films’ DC Black label for its standalone films set outside of the DCEU.

When Todd Phillips’ Joker film was first revealed the be in the works at Warner Bros., the project was said to be part of a new label which would later become known as “DC Black” or “DC Dark.” The idea behind the label was to create new and unique storylines in an effort for the studio to expand DC canon outside of its shared cinematic universe.

Earlier this year, Todd Phillips revealed that he himself actually pitched the label to Warners as a way to stand out against their biggest competitor in superhero entertainment, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Joker being the first in a series of low-budget filmmaker-driven projects. But it seems the studio had Todd Phillips pump the breaks on his big idea to separate DC from Marvel.

When speaking with the LA Times, Todd Phillips described the DC Black label as a laboratory for “independent-minded films about these characters.” Todd Phillips went on to reveal the studio’s pushback, adhering to caution rather than launching a brand new label before even releasing the upcoming Joker film:

“They’re like, ‘Calm down with the label — how about you do one movie?'”

But with the reaction to the marketing for Joker being quite positive, Todd Phillips is remaining confident that his idea for the DC Black label is the way to go:

“There are always going to be naysayers, but from what I gather about the momentum of the movie and the response to the teaser we put out, the majority of fans seem to be excited about going down a different road.”

While the DC Black label might not move forward at Warner Bros., Todd Phillips knows that someone else will eventually reboot the Joker again, and bring their own take to the Clown Prince of Crime on the silver screen:

“But also this will not be the last Joker movie ever made. It might be the last one Joaquin and I do, but someone else is going to come along and do another one, just like with Spider-Man. So if you don’t like this one, don’t worry — it’ll get reinvented again. That’s the fun thing about these characters. In a way, comic books are our Shakespeare, and just like there are many versions of Hamlet and Macbeth, they’ve done four or five versions of the Joker in the last 25 or 30 years. So why not do another one that’s wildly different?”

Todd Phillips wrote the Joker movie script with Scott Silver (8 Mile), drawing inspiration from Martin Scorsese classics such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, with the film taking place in a gritty 1980s Gotham. It’s said to focus on Joaquin Phoenix as a failed comedian who becomes The Joker after bombing with audiences.

The film is set to premiere at the Venice International Film Festival this weekend ahead of its U.S. debut in Toronto. The highly-anticipated movie opens in theaters nationwide this October. 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.

Opening in theaters on October 4, 2019, Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Marc Maron, Brett Cullen, Bryan Callen, and Robert De Niro. Stay tuned to Heroic Hollywood for more updates on the Joker movie!

Source: LA Times

Michael Mistroff

Michael Mistroff

News Editor, Film/TV Reporter at Heroic Hollywood.