Joaquin Phoenix’s twisted take on The Joker revealed in new teaser trailer

The first teaser trailer for the Joker movie has released.

Just one day after Avengers: Endgame released a new trailer to coincide with tickets becoming available for the upcoming blockbuster, Warner Brothers released the first teaser trailer for Joker.

The newest DC Extended Universe movie has been highly anticipated since its announcement in 2017, even more so after critically-acclaimed actor Joaquin Phoenix was cast as the titular role. Not much about the movie has been revealed until today, and now we’ve got an in-depth look at what this film is going to look like, and it’s as dark and twisted as you can imagine.

The footage gives us a glimpse into the life and mindset of a Joker we’ve never seen before. As Phoenix narrates the trailer, we see that he’s a poor, beaten up, broken down, and admittedly mentally ill man named Arthur Fleck. He’s far from the laughing, confident, and psychopathic Joker we’ve seen in the comics, the movies, and tv series.

Time and time again a new iteration of Batman’s archnemesis has come out, most famously played by actors such as Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and Cameron Monaghan. All of them took the reigns of The Joker with such charisma and gravitas in their own brilliant fashion, but Phoenix has refreshingly decided to play him differently, subtly, as a man who knows he has a destiny but doesn’t know how to fulfill it yet.

Fleck is surrounded by a dark and dirty Gotham that gives off similar vibes to Christopher Nolan’s Gotham we see in his Batman Trilogy. The gritty and edgy atmosphere fills the environment so completely you can almost see how The Joker would become The Joker in a place such as this, especially after the hardships we see him face.

Watching a film where it’s not the main character becoming a hero but instead a villain is an interesting concept, one not seen very often. But if the movie is as good as its trailer, this may become a more regular occurrence.

Joker will release in theaters on Oct. 9, 2019.