Does anyone else feel like DC and Warner have no idea what they’re doing anymore? They had a hit with Wonder Woman and now they’re just throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks. I mean, how do you have a movie with both Batman and Superman in it and turn it into a three hour snooze fest? The latest news from the DC cinematic universe is that Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, currently the directors of NBC drama This Is Us, are almost set to write and direct a Joker and Harley Quinn film.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will star Jared Leto and Margot Robbie, who is currently filming Mary Queen of Scots, and will release after a Suicide Squad sequel that is somehow still happening even after people saw the first Suicide Squad movie. I mean, really, that film was clearly made because some exec at Warner saw Guardians of the Galaxy and thought “B-list characters and a pop hit soundtrack means big money” and neglected the part where Guardians was well-written and directed.
According to THR, an insider described the Joker and Harley film as “an insane and twisted love story. When Harry Met Sally on benzedrine.” I have a feeling the audience might need a few bennies to stay awake if this turns out anything like Suicide Squad. Also, haven’t we all already seen Natural Born Killers? That was written by Quentin Tarantino, directed by Oliver Stone, and didn’t have Jared Leto in terrible makeup mailing his co-stars live rats and dead pigs, but otherwise sounds like the same basic movie.
The DC news doesn’t stop there, either, because over at Deadline, they’re reporting Warner is starting a new banner to release films with DC properties that fall outside the continuity of their main DC films. What does that even mean? Build a time machine, go back to before Iron Man was released and say that sentence to a person and tell me what their reaction to it is. They’re going to look at you like you said you were making a Joker movie and you were going to have the Joker sport tattoos of himself from the Alan Moore comic The Killing Joke. How does that even work? Did Alan Moore and Brian Bolland write a comic about the Joker in the universe of the movies that the Joker read before he became the Joker?
The first film in this new banner for DC properties is a Joker origin story directed by Todd Phillips, written by Scott Silver and produced by Phillips and Martin Scorsese. You know, because everyone loves origin stories for superheroes. Look at how well Wolverine: Origins did. Why wouldn’t you want to copy that success? And who doesn’t want to see a movie about the Joker before he looked like a clown and fought Batman and called himself the Joker? It’ll be just like the Star Wars prequels but without lightsabers or Darth Maul.