Like it or not – and most people seem to be in the latter category – Warner Bros. is pushing ahead with an origin story film for one of the most iconic characters in any medium: The Joker. Coming to us from Martin Scorsese and Todd Phillips, the project’s announcement sent shockwaves through the internet, and rightfully so, but if you ask us, it’s best to just wait and see what the studio actually has planned here before rushing to judgement.
That being said, we can certainly see where the critics are coming from. After all, the character’s history is meant to be vague. The mystery is what appeals to us, since we don’t know much about who he is or where he came from. He could’ve been a friend of Bruce Wayne’s from childhood, or a distant cousin of Commissioner Gordon, or he could’ve just been a nobody who had one really bad day. That’s what makes him so interesting: he represents the darkest part of the human soul. A backstory proves to be unnecessary here because we can all relate to how anyone could snap on any given day.
Still, we’re willing to wait and see how things unfold, as a new report has now surfaced which does have us quite intrigued. According to the folks over at Batman-News, Brendan Schaub, a former MMA fighter turned actor, has offered up some details on the project. He got his intel from Todd Feldman, whose Phillips’ agent, and according to him, the origin film is going to get dark.
“It’s dark. It’s like a dark Joker. As a kid, he had a permanent smile and everyone made fun of him. It’s like on the streets of Brooklyn. It’s super dark and real.”
Of course, we’d advise taking this with a grain of salt given the source, but if Schaub is right, then this is definitely an interesting direction for the studio to head in. Especially after all the criticism they received for how dark and gloomy their early DCEU entries were. Granted, this film doesn’t fall under that banner and the character kind of does warrant a more mature and grim tale, but it’s still intriguing to hear.
There’s also the fact that the thing about him being bullied may not sit well with some fans, and that’s because it gives us perspective and perhaps even empathy to why he does what he does. And this will completely destroy his whole purpose of operating as an agent of chaos. There’s supposed to be no reason to what he does, except a lust for anarchy and seeing the world burn.
We don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves just yet, though, as there’s no way to know if any of this is true or not. Still, feel free to drop us a comment in the meantime letting us know if you’re on board with the studio’s Joker film so far. We’d love to hear your thoughts!