The Joker premiere took place Saturday night and while the Todd Phillips-directed DC film isn’t as traditionally comic book-oriented the way fans are familiar with seeing in films like Aquaman or Wonder Woman, that didn’t stop some of the stars in attendance from having a bit of fun doing a bit of cosplay. That included Uncut Gems star LaKeith Stanfield. The actor showed up to support his Atlanta co-stars Brian Tyree Henry and Zazie Beetz while rocking the Joker’s iconic clown makeup and a green hat as a stand in for the Joker’s green hair.
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Stanfield shared a photo of himself in his clever cosplay to Instagram with a caption that invoked the Joker’s diabolical laughter to complete the look. You can check it out for yourself below.
Stanfield wasn’t the only premiere attendee who put a Joker-esque spin on their look for the evening. Aquaman star Jason Momoa attended the premiere dressed in a purple suit with black accents, a sartorial choice that invoked the classic look of the Batman villain who is frequently depicted wearing a purple suit himself.
While both Stanfield and Momoa were having a good time dressing the part for the Joker premiere, the film itself is completely unconnected to the larger DC Extended Universe. It’s a film that largely stands on its own, something that Phillips explained earlier this month was something of a deliberate choice.
“It’s not really connected to that [DC Movie] Universe,” Phillips said. “And it was really intentionally not. I mean the original idea when I went to [Warner Bros.] with the idea was not just about one movie, but about a label – sort of a side label to DC, where you can do these kind of character study, low-rent, low-budget movies, where you get a filmmaker to come in and do some deep dive into a character. So it was never meant to connect, so I don’t see it connecting to anything in the future. I think this is just this movie, you know?”
That disconnect also means that while the Joker is a Batman villain, the hero didn’t have a lot of influence over the movie’s story with Joker ultimately finding its own balance.
“There was probably a little more in earlier cuts, maybe,” Phillips said. “There definitely was a little more everything in the earlier cuts, but it was really about how fun it is that we get to keep one foot in the comic book world and one foot in not and like you said find that balance. It’s hard to quantify how we found that balance, but it was, the movie is very liberating because DC, just speaking about comic books, DC as a company and Warner Bros as a studio really just let us do whatever we wanted with it. It wasn’t like ‘oh and you have to mention the Batmobile and you have to…’ none of that. It was literally like ‘yeah, were going to take this leap on this movie. Just go for it and do it.’”
Upcoming DC movies include Joker on October 4th, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) on February 7, 2020, Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5, 2020, The Batman on June 25, 2021, The Suicide Squad on August 6, 2021, and Aquaman 2 on December 16, 2022.
