The 'Joker' Poster Wants You To Put On A Happy Face, First Trailer Arriving Tomorrow

The first poster for the Joaquin Phoenix-starring Joker movie is here, and it's appropriately unsettling. The message director Todd Phillips has been constantly pushing is that this won't be your standard comic book movie, and sure enough, the first poster looks as if it's advertising a thriller, or even a horror film. The first Joker teaser trailer will drop tomorrow, but in the meantime, you can see the Joker poster below.

Ugh, I like it. I'm willing to admit when I've made a mistake, and while I've yet to see the Joker movie, my early opinion on it has changed drastically. When this project was first announced, my knee-jerk reaction was chagrin. We didn't need a movie about the Joker, I grumbled. But then Todd Phillips had the foresight to cast Joaquin Phoenix, one of the best actors working today. Then, Phillips filled out the rest of the cast with impressive names: Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Bill Camp, Frances Conroy, Marc Maron, and Shea Whigham.

Set pics revealed Phoenix's Joker look was unlike any we'd seen before, and the film itself has been promoted not so much as a comic book movie, and more of a character study about a mentally ill individual. All of this sounds promising, and I'm now excited to see Joker when it hits theaters. Joker "centers around the iconic arch-nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen. The exploration of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale."

Recently, co-star Marc Maron offered some insight into the film. "The approach that Todd Phillips has taken is more of an origin story and a character study of a mentally ill person that becomes The Joker," Maron said. "It's more of an intimate and gritty movie with a very specific scope. It's going to be really interesting to see how it comes out."

Joker laughs his way into theaters October 4, 2019. Look for the teaser trailer tomorrow.