Director Todd Phillips has just revealed the exclusive first screen test in anticipation of the origin film of everybody’s most beloved bad guy from the DC Universe, the Joker. The first glimpse of the Joker in full makeup comes nearly a week after Joaquin Phoenix, who will be playing the Joker, debuted the first look of his character Arthur Fleck without clown paint. His appearance looks similar to that of the previous Joker, the late Heath Ledger, who bought the character considerable attention with his stellar performance in the 2008 film, The Dark Knight.
The film takes place in the 1980’s and follows the Joker’s transition from a failed stand-up comedian named Authur Fleck to Gotham’s City’s most feared criminal. Warner Bros. is producing the DC film, which also stars Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, and Shea Whigham. Key plot details have yet to be released, but speculation is that the movie has a similar vibe to Martin Scorsese‘s The King of Comedy, especially given Scorsese’s role as executive producer.
Joker is set to come to a theater near you on Oct 4, 2019, but in the meantime you can view the screen test video below (and the final-result pic below that) as Phoenix transforms from Fleck into the Joker.