Joker Fanart Gives Joaquin Phoenix a Batman: The Animated Series Makeover
Award season is a hot topic around this time of year, and everyone thinks a trophy could be coming [...]
Award season is a hot topic around this time of year, and everyone thinks a trophy could be coming Joker's way. One fan decided to mix two of the most popular iterations of the character in a fun piece of fan art. Jaxsonderr dialed up Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal against Mark Hamill's spirited take on The Clown Prince of Crime on Batman: The Animated Series. The idea to mix the two is one that appeals to both kids who watched the cartoon on television but effectively morphs the character in ways that melds a bunch of different eras of The Joker. Now, Phoenix's Arthur Fleck will be added to the Halloween staples that fans see out every year. Some variation is good in doses because Batman's nemesis could use a shakeup every once in a while. If the box office portrayal is anything to go by, this redesign and origin is a giant success. Joker will go down as one of Warner Bros.' most popular films of the year. Many found this dark intense take on the comic book villain to be a bright spot this year.
Warner Bros. and the Joker creative team never anticipated this conversation about controversial material would explode around the film like this. (It is fair to ask what exactly they thought would happen when mixing all these elements though.) But, if you're talking about the film's tone, Phillips was 100 percent intent on delivering an unsettling vision.
"It's not a movie for everybody, and that was one of the things I said to [Warner Bros.] in the beginning. Comic book films are generally PG-13, kind of aiming at four quadrant, so to speak, but we were very specific in that this is not necessarily a movie for everybody," Phillips explained. "If it ends up attracting everybody, great, if it crosses over, and people discover it the way they seem to have with Joker now, but we made it in mind, very specifically, narrow focus, if that makes sense."
He added, "Sometimes when you aim for everybody, you end up making a movie for nobody. And I always thought that with the R-rated comedies I made, because I've had studio executives tell me, 'Maybe you make it PG-13, and soften this, and soften that.' Sometimes then it sort of becomes for no one. So my thing has always been a very narrow focus, and if you kind of thread the needle, others will come."
Joker is in theaters right now.