New Joker Plot Details Revealed in Production Notes

Fans will finally get a chance to peak behind the curtain of the past of Batman’s most nefarious foe later this year, as DC Comics and Warner Bros. Pictures are set to release a spinoff movie focusing on the Clown Prince of Crime himself with Joker. The new movie starring Joaquin Phoenix will tell the origin of Gotham City’s psychotic crime lord, exploring the mental breakdown of a struggling clown named Arthur Fleck. Many details surrounding the film are still unknown, but Warner Bros. just unveiled a detailed plot description as part of their production notes for the movie.

Check out the new, in-depth synopsis below, but beware of mild spoilers.

“Forever alone in a crowd, Arthur Fleck seeks connection. Yet, as he trods the sooted Gotham City streets and rides the graffitied mass transit rails of a hostile town teeming with division and dissatisfaction, Arthur wears two masks. One, he paints on for his day job as a clown. The other he can never remove; it’s the guise he projects in a futile attempt to feel he’s a part of the world around him, and not the misunderstood man whom life is repeatedly beating down. Fatherless, Arthur has a fragile mother, arguably his best friend, who nicknamed him Happy, a moniker that’s fostered in Arthur a smile that hides the heartache beneath. But, when bullied by teens on the streets, taunted by suits on the subway, or simply teased by his fellow clowns at work, this social outlier only becomes even more out of sync with everyone around him.

“Directed, co-written and produced by Todd Phillips, Joker is the filmmaker’s original vision of the infamous DC villain, an origin story infused with, but distinctly outside, the character’s more traditional mythologies. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fractured society. Longing for any light to shine on him, he tries his hand as a stand-up comic, but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty and, ultimately, betrayal, Arthur makes one bad decision after another that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty, allegorical character study.”

The early reactions to Joker are skewing heavily positive, especially as it remains fresh in the Rotten Tomatoes score. We’ll see what audiences think when the film premieres on October 4th.