Todd Phillips, the director of Joker, would like to leave audiences speechless after viewing the movie.
Often after viewing a movie, audiences will quickly chat amongst each other, sharing their opinions on what they saw. However, sometimes a film comes along that can’t be digested immediately.
The latter is what Todd Phillips is going for with Joker. Speaking to ComicBook.com, the director revealed that he hopes that audiences will be speechless after the first viewing, as they don’t know quite what to make of the film:
“I find it difficult to talk immediately after, a lot of films, this film in particular for me. I found that as we’ve shown it to people, even when I just bring somebody to the editing room and show it to a friend, a film maker friend, whoever and then you go, and it’s over, and then, they need time, a little bit, to sort of process it honestly in a way.
“I always enjoy movies that are difficult to speak about right after. You go ‘You know, I want to process this a little bit.’ I always find those to be particularly rewarding in a way. It’s not like that was a specific goal, but it is something that I always enjoy about movies, where you can’t necessarily distill it down into a one line thing really simply. So, yeah, I suppose it was somewhat of a goal.”
Hopefully, audiences will be speechless for all the right reasons once Joker arrives at cinemas this October.
Joker centres 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.
Joker is set for release on October 4th 2019 and stars Joaquin Phoenix (The Sisters Brothers), Robert De Niro (Goodfellas), Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2), Bill Camp (Red Sparrow), Frances Conroy (American Horror Story), Brett Cullen (Narcos), Glenn Fleshler (Billions), Douglas Hodge (Penny Dreadful), Marc Maron (GLOW), Josh Pais (Motherless Brooklyn), Shea Whigham (Kong: Skull Island), Douglas Hodge (Robin Hood) and Dante Pereira-Olson (You Were Never Really Here).