JOKER Director Todd Phillips Says Joaquin Phoenix's Joker Would Be in Awe of Batman

Bruce Wayne has not taken on the mantle of Batman in Gotham City in the Joker franchise, but director and co-writer Todd Phillips recently talked about what Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck would think about the Dark Knight if he was running around taking down criminals in Gotham.

Phillips says that Joker would admire Batman, telling IGN: “I think Arthur would be in awe of the alpha male that is Batman. I really do. I think Arthur would look up and appreciate it. I think he'd be in awe of that.”

The filmmaker went on to explain why Joker would be awestruck by the costumed vigilante, saying: “I think Arthur always had a fascination with men at ease, and he is not a man at ease.

“[Robert De Niro’s] Murray Franklin in the first movie was a man at ease. He probably saw the guys he worked with as men at ease, and that was the one thing that Arthur could never be was a man at ease.”

Now, Phillips has no plans to make a third Joker movie, but he previously thought about what the Caped Crusader’s place would be in the Gotham City he created for Joker.

He said: “It'd be interesting to see somebody do a Batman movie in this vein that follows that guy 10 years later or whatever. If he's 12 or 11 there and okay 15 years later becoming Batman in that world. Yeah, I think that'd be really interesting.”

I don’t think we’ll ever see that happen, but it is something interesting to think about because this is a very different version of Gotham and these DC characters than we’ve ever seen before.