Deadpool 2’s Zazie Beetz in talks to join Joaquin Phoenix in Joker

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Jared Leto is the Joker of the DCEU films, as established in SUICIDE SQUAD, but while Warner Bros. claims that they'll be making a Leto Joker movie somewhere down the line, they have also given the greenlight to a JOKER film that will exist outside the DCEU – that is, in a different universe than SUICIDE SQUAD, MAN OF STEEL, BATMAN V. SUPERMAN, WONDER WOMAN, and JUSTICE LEAGUE.

Directed by THE HANGOVER's Todd Phillips from a screenplay he has written with Scott Silver, the JOKER movie will star Joaquin Phoenix as the title character and is said to be a dark character study in the vein of TAXI DRIVER and THE KING OF COMEDY.

With the project moving toward a September production start, it looks like Phoenix is set to get his first co-star: Zazie Beetz, who recently played the Marvel Comics character Domino in DEADPOOL 2, is in talks to play 

a single mother who catches the interest of the man who will become the "clown prince of crime."

I'm not sure about this project yet; I am very interested to see what a Joaquin Phoenix Joker will be like, but I'm wary of the idea of the Joker carrying his own movie.

JOKER reportedly has a budget in the $55 million range and is scheduled to be released on October 4, 2019.