Todd Phillips On Why Joker Was Labeled ‘Dangerous,’ Defends Scorsese’s Marvel Comments

Todd Phillips recently gave his perspective on why Joker became a lightning rod of controversy before its release over concerns it could incite violence. Phillips was part of a roundtable discussion with Noah Baumbach, Martin Scorsese, Fernando Meirelles, Greta Gerwig, and Lulu Wang for THR discussing their experiences as directors in 2019. During the discussion, Phillips shared his thoughts on Martin Scorsese’s headline-grabbing comments from October that Marvel films aren’t “cinema” and the concerns over Joker. Highlights are below:

On Martin Scorsese saying Marvel films aren’t ‘cinema’: “Marty got a lot of heat for [what he said], but I understand it fully. We were struggling to get Joker made, which sounds funny because it exists in the superhero world, but it’s really not one of those movies. We spent a year at Warner Bros., and I saw emails back and forth, literally, where they said, ‘Does he realize we sell Joker pajamas at Target?’ I go, ‘Didn’t movies come first and pajamas come second? Are the pajamas dictating the movies?’…Theme park rides. Pajamas. Slurpee cups. Whatever it is that you are selling off the back of movies, you can’t make your decisions based on that.”

On if he had any concerns that Joker might inspire violence: “No, because I just didn’t subscribe to that bulls**t thing, quite frankly, that was happening in the media, where they just pick a movie every so often and declare it means something that it doesn’t. We had think pieces being written where people proudly wrote, ‘I haven’t seen the movie. I don’t need to see the movie.'”