WATCH: ‘Joker’ trailer parades Joaquin Phoenix’s tragic villain

“Joker” is slated for Oct. 4, 2019, release in United States theaters. Image: courtesy of Warner Brothers, France via AFP Relaxnews

How did the Joker become the twisted villain that Batman knows so well?

How did the Joker become the twisted villain that Batman knows so well?

A debut trailer for the October 2019 film “Joker” presents its subject as Arthur Fleck, a man caught up in a whirlwind of tragic circumstance and personal failings.

Starting with a scene in a psychiatrist’s office, the trailer presents the Joker as a down-on-his-luck street clown, a dear son caring for his aging mother, a struggling comedian and an object of derision.

What might be an unhealthy relationship with his mother (“American Horror Story” regular Frances Conroy) contrasts against an evening out with sparkling-eyed Sophie (Zazie Beetz, “Deadpool 2”); a check-in to Arkham State Hospital illustrates the difference between Arthur Fleck’s stiff, uncomfortable exterior and his interior, or future, life, with a thrashing patient barely restrained in a gurney by his side.

Sophie hardly registers in the teaser trailer’s runtime but could end up highlighting Fleck’s own role in choosing Joker’s life rather than simply casting him as a victim of heartbreaking circumstance.

Fleck also brushes up against mayoral candidate and Batman’s father, Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen, “Narcos”) and a dazzling talk show host played by film icon Robert de Niro (a flip on his early “King of Comedy” role), while as Joker, he even appears to have gathered a following of imitators towards the trailer’s end.

It is then that the opening images of a sullen, defeated Arthur Fleck are finally and resolutely replaced by the fully realized form of a triumphant Joker.

Directed by Todd Phillips of frat comedies “Old School”, “The Hangover” trilogy, and comedic, true life-inspired, gun-running thriller “War Dogs”, “Joker” has previously been framed as a unique entry to the D.C. Extended Universe film franchise, with no bearing on a mainline series that has already installed Jared Leto as the “Suicide Squad” incarnation of the supervillain.

Yet if the “Joker” standalone is a success, as this first trailer suggests it will be, are fans going to be satisfied with its status as a one-off? CE/JB

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