What's the Deal with Joker's Movie-Within-A-Movie?

With the release of the second Joker trailer, fans are combing over both of them, looking for [...]

By Russ Burlingame

With the release of the second Joker trailer, fans are combing over both of them, looking for connections, Easter eggs, and other things that might give a sense of what the movie is about, what the character is about, and what to expect when it hits theaters in October. One of the things that we had kind of forgotten was the brief moment in the first trailer, where Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) dances with his mother in front of the TV as the closing credits of a movie play. Given the high visibility of classic films like Excalibur and Modern Times in the trailers for Joker, it seemed worthwhile to look into the names playing across the screen, to see whether there was some meaning there.

Turns out there was -- but maybe not the kind of deep, Easter-eggy meaning that some fans might have hoped. During the few seconds that the credits scroll across the screen in the trailer, you can see a number of names, including Ben Gatollari, Will Limpert, Nick Hexner, Eric Ward, and Michael Auszura. Doing a quick search for each of these folks on IMDb will reveal that, yes, they do have pages and are real people -- but they were never in some classic movie together that might provide a treasure trove of insight into Arthur's personality. Rather, they appear to be experienced crew members and production staff, who are working on Joker and director Todd Phillips likely had their names inserted into a set of fake credits as a nod to their contribution to the film.

Joker centers around the iconic arch-nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen. The exploration of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character study but also a broader cautionary tale.

Are you looking forward to Joker? Let us know in the comments, or tweet your reactions to @russburlingame!

Joker is hitting theaters on October 4th. Other upcoming DC films include Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) on February 7, 2020, and Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5, 2020.

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