The character of the Joker stands tall in the canon of superhero mythology, even though he is draped in darkness, destructive ill will and chaos. He is the antithesis of everything good and honourable, and yet, when was released, he joined the pantheon of $US1 billion-plus box-office earners. In hindsight, the film’s success seems obvious: a stunning performance from Joaquin Phoenix, crisp and inventive storytelling from director Todd Phillips, and a lean into an almost 85-year-old literary legacy that dates back to his first encounter with Batman, in 1940.
But that relationship, which has been reimagined for the small and silver screens many times in the decades since, begs one question in the context of a movie franchise where Joker is number one on the call sheet and there is no sign of Gotham City billionaire Bruce Wayne: who exactly is the Joker if he does not have his Batman? “One thing I playfully point out to people is, if you had your hands on the screenplay for , it says ‘Joker, an origin story’, not origin story,” says Phillips, as we sit down to discuss , the highly anticipated follow-up. “And it’s really important to us that this is our version of it. “So it wasn’t so much that we were worried, or that we sat and pined over the idea of what is Joker without a Batman; it was really just an attempt to do a backstory on this really tragic person, but through a really realistic lens.
What you know about Joker is: he has white skin, we’re going to .