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PremiereOctober 4

2019

Joker opens

Todd Phillips's dark origin story for Batman's nemesis opened in the United States and became the first R-rated film to earn a billion dollars.

Tourists posing on a long outdoor stone staircase between buildings in the Bronx
Visitors on the Bronx steps known as the Joker Stairs, about a week after the film opened. Image: Moviebuff1921, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Joker opened in theaters across the United States on October 4, 2019, released by Warner Bros. Pictures, a day after it reached Australia and several other markets. Directed by Todd Phillips, who wrote the script with Scott Silver, the film offered a new origin story for the DC Comics villain. Joaquin Phoenix played Arthur Fleck, a mentally ill party clown and failed stand-up comedian in a decaying Gotham City in 1981, whose slide into violence inspires an uprising against the wealthy. Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, and Frances Conroy appeared in supporting roles.

The project was an unusual bet. Phillips was best known for comedies such as The Hangover, and he and Silver drew on 1970s character studies, especially Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, rather than on any particular comic. The budget, estimated at $55 million to $70 million, was a fraction of the cost of a typical comic book film. Phoenix lost 52 pounds for the part, and the shoot moved through New York City, Jersey City, and Newark in late 2018. The film premiered at the Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2019, and went on to win the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion.

Critics were split, and some writers worried that its sympathetic portrait of a killer could inspire real violence. Audiences turned out regardless. The opening weekend brought in $96.2 million in North America, a record for an October release.

Why it matters

Joker grossed about $1.079 billion worldwide and became the first R-rated film to pass the billion-dollar mark, a record it held until Deadpool & Wolverine in 2024. Its success showed that a dark, low-budget character study built on comic book material could draw a mass audience.

The film earned 11 Academy Award nominations, a record for a comic book adaptation, and won two: Best Actor for Phoenix and Best Original Score for Hildur Guðnadóttir. A set of steps in the Bronx where Arthur dances in costume, dubbed the Joker Stairs, became a tourist attraction and a popular internet meme.

Did you know?

The sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, with Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, opened on October 4, 2024, exactly five years after the original, but it drew poor reviews and weak ticket sales.

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