According to Deadline, Alec Baldwin has been cast as Batman’s father Thomas Wayne in the upcoming Joker film. The film, set to be directed by Todd Phillips, will star Joaquin Phoenix as the clown prince of crime.
Sources say that Baldwin has not officially signed onto the project yet, but is interested in the role.
While story details are being kept under wraps, it has been previously reported that the origin story for Batman’s nemesis will be more of a mid-budget crime thriller than a superhero blockbuster, and that it will be based — at least loosely — on the origin story for the character depicted in Moore’s The Killing Joke.
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Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow will co-produce the film. Emma Tillinger Koskoff and Richard Baratta, whose producing credits include Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, are attached as producers. The film will be released on October 4, 2019, with production set to begin in New York this September.
Jared Leto will continue to play The Joker in DC universe films. Leto is attached to return as the character in Suicide Squad 2, and the untitled Harley Quinn/Joker film alongside his Suicide Squad co-star Margot Robbie.
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Insiders say the solo Joker movie will be set in Gotham City in the early 1980s and have the aesthetic of a gritty crime drama. Martin Scorsese is on board as a producer. The producers are taking heavy inspiration from Scorsese’s work for the standalone film.
