Yahoo Movies Joaquin Phoenix wanted gritty superhero movie years ago
A Joker solo movie starring Joaquin Phoenix was huge news this week, but it actually could have happened several years ago.
The Academy Award-nominated actor has a history with DC Comics dating back to playing Superboy on telly as a child actor, but turned away from comic book franchises as they reached their most recent heights in Hollywood.
What fans don't know is that, long before Warner Bros launched a whole division devoted strictly to movies based on DC Comics villains, Joaquin Phoenix pitched doing a low-budget character study featuring a comedy book character.
"Three or four years ago, I called my agent and said 'Why don't they want to take one of these characters and just make a lower budget film about it, a movie but a character study, and why not take one of the villains?'" he told Collider.
"And I thought, 'You can't do the Joker, because, you know, it's just you can't do that character, it's just been done.' So I was trying to think of other characters, and he said 'I'll set up a general meeting with Warner Bros'.
"And I said 'I'm not gonna go, I can't go to a general meeting.' So I completely forgot about it, and so then I heard about this idea, I was like, 'Oh that's so exciting, that's the kind of experience I wanted to have, with a movie based on a comic character.' I felt like you could get something on screen."
The timeline sounds like it was around the period where Phoenix flirted with playing Doctor Strange for Marvel, before the role ultimately went to Benedict Cumberbatch.
The good news is that he has now officially signed on the dotted line to collaborate with director Todd Phillips on a Joker project that Warner Bros says is "not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale".
Phoenix's Joker movie is expected to begin filming in September, and could open in US and UK cinemas next year.
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