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We all know the famous Joker from the DC Universe — mysterious, with various possible stories of how he got those scars, never knowing for sure if the last version he told us is indeed the last one.
But more enigmatic than the character’s past in the DC world is the journey Todd Phillips’s Joker had from the moment they started filming to his various nominations.
How come the only Joker with a clear and precise story, as portrayed by Todd, had such an enigmatic marketing strategy?
As Todd said in the Venice Film Festival Conference, Warner Bros. did not accept his proposal for a new Joker story from the start. THIS Joker had almost none (or very few) of the DC comics characteristics.
There are a few associations that can be made. The first is with the movie The Killing Joke, where he also failed as a comedian. Secondly, with the city of Gotham, and a somehow hasty mention of the Wayne family. The movie is focusing on Joker’s becoming.
Long before even the first poster came out, Todd Phillips started posting behind the scenes photos on his Instagram account, starting with September 2018. Also, the first teaser-like video of Joker was posted on the director’s page during the same month. It depicts Arthur Fleck and Joker overlapping.
At the end of the video, we can see Joker prevailing:
Todd Phillips kept his followers engaged by posting photos from the set during the following months. In April 2019, the first movie poster was released on Todd’s Instagram account, reposted by Warner Bros., and the official Instagram account of the movie.
According to Todd Phillips, Joker was meant to be a “slow burn”, and so the marketing strategy seemed to fit the movie’s style. The transition of the character from the beginning to the end is slow but drastic.
We can associate the character’s development with the way Phillips and Warner Bros. chose to present the movie from a marketing point of view — slowly unboxing it to reveal the final touch.
In April 2019, Warner Bros. released the first teaser on their YouTube channel, which again did not reveal too much about the movie.
A few months later, in July, more precisely, Empire Magazine had the first Joker interview with Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips and posted some exclusive images:
Total Film Magazine also shared exclusive images in August 2019:
My favorite teaser is, in fact, a compilation of six smaller teasers that were featured in an Instagram post, which announced the official trailer, coming out the following day (August 27, 2019):
August was also the month when I read an article about how Joker received an 8-minute standing ovation at the Venice International Film Festival. The movie won The Golden Lion for the Best Film at the Venice Film Festival.
In September 2019, the movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Just one year before, Todd Phillips was hoping to be there with Joker, so his dream came true.
With the movie premiering in two essential places by now, the critics started to write about it. The pieces of writing were not all positive. As it turns out, the movie used negative reviews to promote itself.
I even remember reading one negative review first. In terms of violence, the movie was harshly critiqued. But why so? There are plenty of action movies out there with more graphic scenes of shooting and killing. This one, on the other hand, was scarier because it was more realistic.
As Phillips said, the movie can be seen with realistic lenses. It makes you empathize. It makes you scared.
THIS Joker can be anyone with a problem of acceptance in society. He was pushed too far until the point he became Joker. Just remember the scene in the bathroom, with the heavy song in the background. It was written to express a nonverbal transformation, but everyone understood it.
Everything about the marketing campaign and the movie has enigmatically written all over. The campaign embraced negative reviews and used them. After all, Joker is an anti-hero.
On the Instagram account, there were shared a lot of short, positive mini-reviews, such as these:
On the Instagram account, there were shared a lot of short, positive mini-reviews, such as these:
More Posters to Feed Our Mind In September 2019, the campaign started to stir people’s curiosity even more. IMAX released a new poster: photo source So did Fandango, with two more: photo sourcephoto source Dolby Cinema: photo source And Regal Movies: photo source Now, I’ve mentioned the slowly unboxing in both the marketing campaign and the movie. These posters seem to do the same thing. Let’s take a look:
From the first poster, which did not even show his whole face to the ones where he clearly embraces the chaos and his metamorphosis into another, we have the perfect glimpse and the perfect description of the campaign itself.
At the end of September 2019, just before the movie’s official release, Joker’s official Instagram account shared a new artwork for the movie poster.
He became Joker indeed:
Despite the previous feeling of embracing negative reviews, Warner Bros. decided that the movie’s first appearance in a Hollywood theater, outside a film festival, to be a press-free night. Only photographers were allowed.
If you think this marketing campaign couldn’t have inflicted any more tension in its followers, you haven’t heard about the movie’s official release countdown. It started one week before:
In All Theaters and Movie Awards Lists After its official release, the movie quickly got to be the #1 movie in the world:
Joker reached over $1 billion in the box office as of today, so in the end, the campaign did its job.
As for the movie, it was nominated at the Golden Globes, Bafta Awards, and the Oscars.
Joaquin Phoenix won the title of Best Actor in all three of them. HildurGudnadóttir, the composer for Joker’s music, also took the trophy from all three ceremonies for Best Original Score.
The astonishing fact (besides the heaviness her cello expresses) is that Hildur created the music based just on the script Todd sent her before even accepting the job. Her music was there since the beginning, following them on the set, where it was played constantly to the point where Arthur became The Joker. This formula was set to achieve greatness.
The marketing campaign for Todd Phillips’ stand-alone film in the DC universe started long before the first poster of the movie came out. It was meant to be puzzling, to create curiosity and tension.
Joaquin’s construction of its character was a memorable one too. He lost 52 pounds really fast and practiced the unforgettable laugh for months, after which he asked Todd to audition his laugh.
Joaquin, Todd, and Hildur were actively involved in creating a character, which, from my point of view, is beyond remarkable. I watched the movie a few times already and the feeling of being amazed is still vivid.
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