Joker Director Said He Was Misquoted About Comic Influence in the Film

A few months back, Joker director Todd Phillips was said to have revealed that his movie about the Clown Prince of Crime isn't based on any comics, which a lot of fans took issue against. Now he's going back to the statement and is saying that he was misquoted by Empire.

During a press conference (via Batman-News), Phillips explained, "It's funny because a lot of you guys have probably reprinted something I said in Empire where I was misquoted." Phillips continued:

"I'm not gonna complain… I like the writer; he wrote a great piece where I said we didn't take anything from the comic book world. It's actually not what I said. What I said was we didn't take anything from one particular comic. We kind of picked and chose what we liked from the kind of 80-year canon of Joker. We kind of pulled a few things that we liked."

Just in case you're curious, the original quote that went out was:

"We didn't follow anything from the comic books, which people are gonna be mad about. We just wrote our own version of where a guy like Joker might come from. That's what was interesting to me. We're not even doing Joker, but the story of becoming Joker. It's about this man."

Though the movie has a lot of influence from movies like Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, there is no doubt a lot of other elements were lifted from the comics. For one, a lot of the basic elements of Gotham City are there from Arkham Asylum to the GCPD. The exploration of the origin is also very reminiscent of Alan Moore's The Killing Joke, which also tried to explain Joker's origin. In that comic, Joker was also a failed stand-up comic as well.

Despite all the influence, there're also a lot of new original elements that we can see in the film. Probably the most obvious one is Arthur Fleck's mental instability. In the movie, Arthur is afflicted with chronic laughter, meaning he can't control when he laughs. It will be interesting to see how that factors in on his transformation into the Clown Prince of Crime.

Catch Joker in theaters Oct. 4.

Read Also: Joaquin Phoenix Didn't Go to a 'Dark Place' While Shooting Joker