The Warner Bros. boardroom and Jared Leto may have been thoroughly unconvinced by the idea, but Todd Phillips’ bold re-imagining of the Joker mythos blew any doubts the studio had over the project’s viability right out of the water.
Ironically, WB missed out on massive profits after being so skeptical over the movie’s chances of success that they co-financed the production with several other companies, even though Joker only cost roughly 25% of what it set them back to bring the likes of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Justice League to the big screen.
A box office haul north of $1 billion saw it comfortably eclipse Deadpool 2‘s $785 million tally to become the highest-grossing R-rated title in the history of cinema, while it went on to land eleven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director. Leading man Joaquin Phoenix walked away with the Best Actor trophy and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s musical contributions were recognized with a gong for Best Original Score.
In fact, Phoenix’s victory saw the Joker enter rarefied air by following up Heath Ledger’s iconic turn in The Dark Knight to cement the Clown Prince of Crime as just the second fictional character ever to yield a pair of Oscar-winning performances from different actors, following in the illustrious footsteps of screen legends Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro, who both struck gold as The Godfather‘s Vito Corleone.
Audiences clearly haven’t tired of the film just yet, with Joker finding an astonishing new lease of life on Netflix. Over the last couple of days, the R-rated psychological drama has rocketed up 80 places on the most-watched list and is now sitting in nineteenth place on the global viewership charts.