Todd Phillips thanks the fans for the Joker‘s $1 billion box office success. The unorthodox movie based on The Clown Prince of Crime became an unexpected box office explosion. Before the movie was released, there weren’t a lot of people estimating that it was going to be as massive as it has proved to be, mainly due to the controversy surrounding it before it hit theaters. At the time, it seemed that the controversy was going to have a negative effect on ticket sales.
The controversy ended up being the best free publicity Joker could have ever received. Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips tried to avoid the subject in interviews, but it was inescapable. In the end, the fans helped bring the movie to the top with word of mouth advertising, which is what Phillips is using to celebrate the box office success. Normally when a movie crosses the $1 billion mark, the studio releases a video montage of critics talking about the movie. Phillips did the exact opposite and took fan reactions from Twitter instead, thanking them at the same time. Phillips says, “Wow. What a ride this has been!! Thank you to the fans!”
Joker was something that comic book fans were initially skeptical of. Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix promised early on that the movie was not going to be a traditional comic book movie and that it was going to show a new origin story for the iconic villain, which was outside of the DCEU. However, once the movie hit theaters, both fans of the comic book source material and outsiders saw what Phillips and Phoenix meant. Thankfully, positive words about the movie started to spread, and everyone was recreating the Joker stairs dance.
Joker is not a traditional superhero movie and is open to interpretation, even more so if you read the Joker script which went online today. Joaquin Phoenix likes that aspect of the movie and does not like to discuss the ending. Instead, he wants the fans to continue to ask questions about it. Does Arthur Fleck really transform into the Joker by the end of the movie, or is it all in his head? It’s that ambiguity that lets the movie stand alone and speak for itself. Phoenix likes that aspect of it, and it seems that the fans are right there with him.
Joker is still in theaters and could end up having a resurgence once awards season begins. There have been talks about Joaquin Phoenix taking home an Academy Award since before the movie premiered. Now that Joker has broken the mold, we’re more than likely going to see some studios following suit, making a movie with a smaller budget and taking the R-rating to the bank. It’s going to be interesting to see what Warner Bros. decides to do in the wake of Todd Phillips’ success. You can check out the thank you to fans below, thanks to Todd Phillips’ Instagram account.
