Martin Scorsese considered directing Joker

Joker has taken the world by storm since its release, with most of us unable to stop talking about Joaquin Phoenix’s performance. And here we thought no one could ever come close to Heath Ledger!

It’s also no secret that writer/director Todd Phillips was very heavily influenced by the works of director Martin Scorsese when making Joker; take away the clown makeup and the Bruce Wayne cameo and you basically have Taxi Driver. So it doesn’t come as a huge surprise to hear that Scorsese once considered directing it, as he revealed in an interview with the BBC:

“I decided that I didn’t have the time for it,” said Scorsese, who’s movie The Irishman recently dropped on Netflix. “Todd told me, ‘Marty, this is yours,’ and [I said], ‘I don’t know if I want to.’ For personal reasons, I didn’t want to get involved, but I know the script very well.”

What might those reasons be? It’s possible they have to do with Scorsese’s comments about superhero films in general, for which he’s been getting a lot of attention lately. “[T]hat’s not cinema,” he recently said of Marvel movies. “Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”

So what made Joker different? Maybe Scorsese didn’t really think of it as a superhero film to begin with; it’s pretty outside the norm of the average thing you see from Marvel or DC. Or maybe he was afraid of where it would go next. “Next step, which is…this character developing into a comic-book character,” he said. “He develops into an abstraction. That doesn’t mean it’s bad art. It could be, but it’s not for me, you follow?

So with Joker in the rearview mirror, how does Scorsese really feel about superhero films?

"They’re not easy to make. There are a lot of very talented people doing good work, and a lot of young people really, really enjoy them. But I do think it’s more of…an extension of the amusement park."

Amusement park, huh? Not sure I agree with that one, but to each their own.

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Switching gears for a moment, Todd Phillips posted some behind-the-scenes photos from Joker and revealed a strange Easter egg about…Catwoman. Flip to the eighth of 10 pictures to see what it is, although be advised it’s not 100% safe for work:

This is a page we didn’t see from Arthur Fleck’s disturbing diary. Fleck, ever unstable, has cut out images of sexy women and combined them with cats, which…well, he is a crazy person.

For a more palatable version of Catwoman, we can look forward to Zoe Kravitz playing her in The Batman.

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h/t Variety, CBR