On Sunday, Joker director Todd Phillips shared a new image of Joaquin Phoenix in character as the iconic Batman villain in his upcoming film. Best known for The Hangover trilogy and War Dogs, Phillips has frequently posted teasing images and videos to his official Instagram account to get DC Comics fans excited for the movie. With Sunday’s post, however, he used the platform to finally address a question that, apparently, a lot of people had been asking him about: What will Joker be rated?
“It will be Rated R,” Phillips wrote in response to a follower’s question about the film’s official MPAA rating. “I’ve been asked this a lot. Just assumed people knew. Sorry.”
Of course, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Joker was gunning for an R rating. After all, the teaser trailer that was released in April spurred plenty of jokes at its expense, but it was as creepy as it is silly. What’s more, both Phillips and actor Robert De Niro, who has a small part in the film, have confirmed its thematic connections to Martin Scorsese’s film The King of Comedy, which De Niro also starred in.
And if you know anything about Scorsese films starring Robert De Niro, then you know that that’s an R-rated connection. (Even though King of Comedy is rated PG, but my, how the times have changed…)