‘Joker’: Dante Pereira-Olson Cast as Young Bruce Wayne

The cast of Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix‘s solo Joker movie continues to add popular DC characters to the fold, and it looks like Bruce Wayne is next on the list.

ComicBook.com can confirm that young actor Dante Pereira-Olson has been cast in Joker as Bruce Wayne, the boy who will eventually grow up to be Batman. This casting comes on the heels of Douglas Hodge landing the role of Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce’s butler and eventual guardian. The casting will reunite Pereira-Olson and Phoenix, who recently starred together in the critically-acclaimed thriller You Were Never Really Here.

Taking place in the ’80s, Joker will show a time before both of Bruce’s parents were murdered. Brett Cullen is going to be playing the child’s father, Thomas Wayne, a role that was vacated when Alec Baldwin dropped out of the film.

Joker also stars Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Bill Camp, Frances Conroy, Glenn Fleshler, Marc Maron, Josh Pais, and Shea Whigham. Phoenix will take over the titular role of the Joker, also known as Arthur Fleck. The film will be directed by Hangover helmer Todd Phillips.

Despite the fact that Joker is based on comic book characters, Phoenix sees it as a kind of movie all its own, quite different from the other Marvel and DC ventures.

“I wouldn’t quite classify this as like any genre,” Phoenix said in a recent interview. “I wouldn’t say it’s a superhero movie, or a studio movie or a … It feels unique, and I think more then 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. 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.”

Are you excited for the Joker movie? What do you think of the cast so far? Let us know in the comments!

Joker is set to hit theaters on October 4, 2019.