New ‘Joker’ Movie Set Footage Shows Seedy Gotham City

Filming for Warner Brothers’ Joker origin movie is well underway and the production is busy turning downtown Newark into Gotham City.

According to News 12, Todd Phillips’ movie is busy at work changing up the facades of buildings on Newark’s Market Street to match the look and feel of Gotham City set in the 1980s.

The Newark news station reports a substanial amount of the movie’s $55 million budget is going to temporarily renovating the buildings.

Interviewing a local resident, News 12 revealed that the Joaquin Phoenix-led film has been filming on Market Street for several days.

“A lot of activity over the last couple days, they put all this stuff up, overnight pretty much. Even the fake trash, that I thought was real for a second,” Newark resident Steve Fredericks told News 12. “It’s been great, a lot of people, a lot of buzz, it’s been very exciting.”

As a part of newly-restored film tax credits instituted by New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, Joker is slated to receive a 30 percent tax credit for every day it films in the Garden State.

According to Phoenix himself, Phillips’ Joker is going to be an all-new movie in the genre.

“I wouldn’t quite classify this as like any genre,” Phoenix said while speaking with Collider. “I wouldn’t say it’s a superhero movie, or a studio movie or a … It feels unique, and I think more than anything, and probably the most important thing, is Todd seems very passionate about it and very giving, and so that’s exciting.”

“I think, underneath the excitement of these films, and the size of them, there are these incredible characters that are dealing with real-life struggles,” Phoenix said. “And sometimes that is uncovered and exposed, and sometimes it isn’t, and so I always felt, like, there were characters in comics that were really interesting and deserve the opportunity to be kind of studied. And so I think that’s what Todd sees appealing about this idea.”

Joker is directed by Todd Phillips and executive produced by Martin Scorsese. The film stars Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, the man who will become the Joker. The film also features Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, and Marc Maron. The film will reveal the origin of the Joker, which has been shrouded in mystery for years in both comics and film.

Joker opens in theaters on Oct. 4, 2019.