The Joker movie has been a huge success and a real example of what can be accomplished when you let the writer/director of the movie have creative freedom. That was exactly what Todd Phillips had, as he describes not having any “rules or mandates” when it came to making his movie. A behind the scenes featurette, called Joker: Vision & Fury; Phillips explains the early process behind his film.
“I had never really thought about doing a comic book movie. For me, it was more about this idea of doing a character study but about somebody people have no idea who, what, where he came from or anything like that. So, I kind of came it that way. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I want to make a Joker movie.’ It really came from, ‘How do you make a great character study, and make people want to see it?’”
We’ve seen how tight DC can grip onto filmmakers during their movie making process. This was something that initially made Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix have reservations about doing a comic book movie. But, the fact that the Joker was separated from the actual DC extended universe meant they enjoyed a “pretty loose leash” from Warner Bros.:
“I pitched it to them as an idea first and they said, ‘Okay, go and explore.’ I met with some people at DC and then we went off and wrote it,” Phillips explains. “Scott Silver and I wrote for, really, a year and came back with the script, but there was no rules or mandates from them. We really departed from a lot of the comic book things, we made up a new character, we gave him this name and we chose it out of the blue, so to speak.”
He continued:
“And maybe to the chagrin of true comic book fans, we didn’t see dropping Arthur Fleck into a vat of acid and turning him white. That wasn’t the movie we’re making. We just wanted to make something that felt grounded in a reality.”
Phillips also added:
“There’s many ways to look at the movie. He might not be Joker,” Phillips says. “This is just a version of a Joker origin. It’s just the version this guy is telling in this room at a mental institution. I don’t know that he’s the most reliable narrator in the world, you know what I’m saying?”
Source: CB
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