New Image of Robert De Niro's Character in JOKER

Thanks to Empire, we’ve got a new photo to share with you from director Todd Phillips’s upcoming Joker movie. It offers us a new look at Robert De Niro as talk show host Murray Franklin. As you can see in the image, he’s getting some face to face time with Joaquin Phoenix’s Arther Fleck, a.k.a. Joker.

When talking to Empire about De Niro joining the cast, Phillips says:

“Bob really loved the script. I met with him and said, ‘I’d be lying to you if I said we weren’t influenced by a lot of your movies.’ I talked with him about Taxi Driver and about The King Of Comedy, which is one of my favorite movies of all time.”

He went on to share a story about how there was a bomb scare on the first day of shooting with De Niro on the set. Apparently, an explosive device was sent to the production office:

“We had FBI guys showing up to search the set. And I thought, ‘Oh god, what’s he gonna be like?’ And he comes in like it’s nothing, just ready to rock, knew his shit. He’s amazing.”

I’m excited for this movie! Phillips recently said that he thought the film would make the fans mad because the film going to give us a whole new unique version of the character. He also said that it’s not even going to be a story about the Joker at all:

“We didn’t follow anything from the comic-books, which people are gonna be mad about. We just wrote our own version of where a guy like Joker might come from. That’s what was interesting to me. We’re not even doing Joker, but the story of becoming Joker. It’s about this man.”

But, I love what I’ve seen from the film so far and I can’t wait to see how this completely new story for the Joker turns out!