Joaquin Phoenix's Joker, released earlier this month, has already broken several box-office records. After crossing $800 million last week, the DC movie became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, surpassing Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool series. Several predictions now quote that the Warner Bros' production will cross $900 million to $1 billion worldwide.
The movie has received praise for its screenplay, direction, photography, narrative structure, and most importantly with Phoenix's portrayal of Arthur Fleck aka Joker.
Warner Bros seems surprised with Joker's success after the movie broke Deadpool's box-office record. Toby Emmerich, the Chairman of Warner Bros Picture Group, issued a statement praising Todd Phillips' take on Joker and Phoenix's interpretation of the iconic character.
He congratulated the entire team "at DC on reaching this extraordinary benchmark, and I personally want to congratulate the entire Warner Bros. team on the roll-out of this film."
In addition to this, Emmerich also stated that Warner Bros was surprised by Joker's earnings. During his recent conversation with The Hollywood Reporters' executive roundtable, he was asked how they approached the DC library. He stated that the idea behind making Joker really came from Todd Phillips, adding that they considered making an R-rated super-villain movie would be a great idea.
"One of the advantages of being Warner Bros and having DC is that we don't feel that all the movies have to be — not that Disney's films are — but we don't feel our films have to be of the same tone or in a connected universe," he said.
As of this week, Joker is currently ranked #7 on BoxOfficeMojo's North American list for 2019. The movie did not get an official release in China.
