JOKER Director Todd Phillips Says He Pitched 3 DC Black Label Movies to Warner Bros.

A couple of weeks ago it was reported that Phillips had a meeting with Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich and pitched him an idea to develop “a portfolio of DC characters' origin stories.” Phillips later seemed to debunk that news. Well, now in an interview with IGN UK, the filmmaker admits that he did pitch the studio three DC Black Label films, including Joker. He explains:

"I pitched it as three movies, Joker being the first with me, and then these two other movies, with two other directors. But I don't really want to name them, because then it'll become a thing and I'm pulling these directors into it when I've never even told them about it. It was just me telling Warner Bros. about it.”

As of right now, it doesn’t seem like WB is doing anything with the idea, but it seems like Phillips is still interested in pursuing it if the studio wants:

"I still think it's a great idea. But I'll be honest with you, their argument - well, it wasn't an argument - their thing is, there's no reason to create its own label, there's no reason to go to all that trouble. Just when we want to one of these kind of movies, we'll do it, just like Joker is. I get that, but I also thought it was just kind of cool if it became a thing."

Joker was an incredible and super successful movie that is going to be showered with all kinds of awards. While there have been talks of a sequel, nothing is happening with it at this point. While I think the film works great as a standalone movie. I’ll be shocked if a sequel doesn’t happen because it’s the Hollywood way.

I wonder what other two DC characters Phillips had in mind to make movies out of and what directors he wanted to bring in to helm them. What other DC characters would you like to see get dark film treatment like Joker?