Robert De Niro May Join Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker Movie as New Details Emerge

If there's any one thing we can all agree the DC film universe has done really well, it's establish that there are basically no rules and anyone can do whatever the hell they want... until they can't. No one was checking in on Zack Snyder when he made Batman v Superman, which led to hawkish supervision on Suicide Squad. The whole thing is a real god damned mess, and that's sort of the only unifying factor in the DCEU.

They currently have two Joker movies in pre-production, one starring the insufferable sack of shit that is Jared Leto, and the other being an unrelated origin film directed by The Hangover's Todd Phillips and starring 43-year old Joaquin Phoenix. I love Joaquin and can't wait to see his interpretation of the character, but please stop calling this an origin film.

No one wants to see how a man in his 40s became a villain. If you really want to make a Joker origin film, you wait for Timothée Chalamet to be available. Just sit and wait for him because that will be a crazy good movie.

Instead, I guess the tactic is casting people substantially older than Phoenix to make him look younger, as That Hashtag Show reveals a character breakdown that's rife with geezers. The site is reporting on eight separate casting notices related to the film, five of which are for actors over 40 and a further two of which are for actors over the age of 60.

At the same time, they do give us some insight into what the film will be about. There's also rumors that they're pursuing an Oscar winning legend for one of those roles, a caucasian male over the age of 65 named Murray Franklin...

While no further description was given to us about this character, we are told the role is a very strong supporting one and that Phillips, along with co-producer Martin Scorsese, may be targeting Hollywood legend Robert DeNiro for the role.

If this were 15 years ago and you told me that Robert De Niro and Joaquin Phoenix were making a Joker movie from the director of Old School, I'd have been on board 110%. This isn't fifteen years ago, however, and I can't muster any excitement for this. I guess we'll have to wait and see what Phoenix is gonna look like before we can make a better guess as to what this whole thing is going to be. That's gonna be quite a wait.