Joaquin Phoenix ’s supervillain-to-be has it rough in a new trailer for “Joker” posted Wednesday. (Watch it above.)
Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) gets beaten, publicly humiliated and reprimanded by a mom in a dark preview without comic book flourishes.
“All I have are negative thoughts,” Fleck tells a counselor.
No kidding.
Director Todd Phillips’ take on how Fleck becomes Joker tracks him from a struggling comic who idolizes a talk show host played by Robert De Niro, to a vicious bozo who torments Gotham City. Especially Batman.
“This will not be the last Joker movie ever made,” Phillips told the Los Angeles Times . “It might be the last one Joaquin and I do, but someone else is going to come along and do another one, just like with Spider-Man. So if you don’t like this one, don’t worry — it’ll get reinvented again.”
“Joker” opens Oct. 4.