WB/DC Set Todd Phillips, Scott Silver, Martin Scorsese For 'The Joker Origin' Film

Warner Bros and DC have set The Hangover's Todd Phillips and 8 Mile scribe Scott Silver to co-write the script for the origin story of the signature villain The Joker. Phillips will direct the movie, and Martin Scorsese will produce it with Phillips. This film will also be the first film under a new banner that has yet to be named in which WB can expand the canon of DC properties and create unique storylines with different actors playing the iconic characters.

Sources are reporting that the studios intention is to make an origin story that isn't part of any other iteration. The Joker has been been in Batman movies, played by Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, and was most recently played by Jared Leto in the first Suicide Squad film. Leto will return as The Joker in the Suicide Squad sequel and the Harley Quinn spinoff, but this new film will launch the character with a different actor, possibly younger.

The intriguing part is the setting with intention to make a gritty and grounded hard-boiled crime film set in early-’80s Gotham City that isn’t meant to feel like a DC movie as much as one of Scorsese’s films from that era, like Taxi Driver or Raging Bull.

Source: Deadline