Todd Phillips thinks his Joker would be a Batman fanboy
The promise of Todd Phillips Joker was to strip out the comic book elements from its titular character and show what would happen if an ordinary guy in 1980s Gotham put on clown make-up. It turned out that things did not go well for him, but mostly everyone around him. You may wonder what would happen to an adult Batman if he met the version of his arch-nemesis that was in the original film. Todd Phillips believes Arthur Fleck just would think Batman is cool. (You’re shocked, I’m sure. Phillips said in an IGN interview that Arthur would be “in awe” of Batman, the alpha-male. I think
should look up at it and appreciate it. In his reading, Arthur is “fascinated” by men who are relaxed. This includes his coworkers as well as Robert De Niro’s Murray Franklin in the first film. Why wouldn’t this extend to Batman, who is everything that Arthur is not? The original Joker’s fascination with Arthur ended when he lost his cool and shot Murray on live television. Phillips’ remarks do point out something: Arthur is very quick to fall into love, whether romantically or platonically. Warner Bros. probably isn’t interested in turning the subtext of Bats and Jokes, which has been around for decades, into actual text. At least not more than Lego Batman did in 2017. Considering Arthur’s luck with people he crushes on, anything between this Clown Prince and a Dark Knight old enough to punch his face in would likely end in a bad romance.[he’d]Joker: Folie a Deux hits theaters on October 4.
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