It feels like Warner Bros. has about a billion Joker movies in development right now, but the first one to make it out the gate will be Todd Phillips’ gritty origin story starring Joaquin Phoenix. Warner Bros. has scheduled the film to arrive on October 4, 2019 according to THR.

Details on the movie are still scarce, and it remains to be seen if Warner Bros. will give anything more away when they have their big Hall H panel at Comic-Con on Saturday. The studio is usually tight-lipped on distant projects (one year for Batman v Superman they just had Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, and Henry Cavill come out and wave), and since they’ll be busy trying to promote other superhero movies, specifically Aquaman and Shazam!, I imagine they won’t give away too much on stuff that comes out past July 2019. Got to save something for next year’s Comic-Con!

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Image via Amazon Studios

We don’t know much about the plot of the film. Phillips is co-writing the movie with Scott Silver, and the logline is “an exploration of a man disregarded by society [that] is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale.” Remember kids, only you can avoid falling into a vat of chemicals because Batman didn’t save you, devolving into madness, and murdering scores of people. I hope the movie is just two hours of railing against ACE Chemicals.

Production on the Joker movie is set to begin later this year with a relatively low budget of $55 million, and the picture is described as a crime drama. When we recently spoke to Phoenix about taking on the character, he told us:

“I take a lot of time and consideration when making decisions and what I’m gonna work on always. So, in some ways, the process, which is obviously reading a script and meeting a filmmaker and then continuing to have meetings and discussions with Todd [Phillips]. I think he’s very impressive and he seems to have a very interesting understanding of this world and what he’s trying to say. And so there is something very appealing about that and working with him on this particular project. It feels unique, it is its own world in some ways, and maybe, mostly, it scares the fucking shit out of me or something. It might as well be the thing that scares you the most.”

Right now, the only competition on the October 4th date is the sci-fi movie Gemini Man and the thriller The Woman in the Window.

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Image via Warner Bros.
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Image via Warner Bros.
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Image via Warner Bros.