The Untold Story of Joker (2019)

There's a story behind Joker that's not well known

There’s a (true) origin story of the movie Joker that I always find very interesting that is as much commentary on our society as the movie itself.

For those of you that don’t remember, Joker was a genuinely fantastic movie that pained a very dark view of a not too distant future where the world is very bleak, to put it simply.

Now, it was written, produced, and directed by a man named Todd Philipps, and by all accounts he did a fantastic job. He was nominated for 3 Oscars for Joker including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.

But how Joker came about is truly fascinating. See, before Joker, the most famous movies Todd Phillips has similar credentials for were the first two Hangover movies, which he wrote and directed. Before that, he did Road Trip and Old School, two other very raunchy comedies.

See, after the success of the Hangover series, he continued writing dirty comedies, but studios kept denying him. Over and over. Todd actually became quite disillusioned and has said in interviews he thought no one was allowed to be funny anymore in our modern PC world.

Which is exactly why he decided to make Joker.

Joker is Todd Phillips’s personal commentary on the state of our modern PC culture, where it will end up, and why we need to laugh more and take things less seriously. So instead of making some raunchy comedy, he made one of the darkest commentaries on society ever made. And it was brilliant satire of both Hollywood and all of us.

This is out there in scattered interviews and stories. You could tell Phillips was really quite bitter and Joker was his middle finger to the establishment. Honestly, to me, it makes the film that much more brilliant.