Joker Movie in the Works With 'Hangover' Filmmaker 

Joker Movie in the Works With 'Hangover' Filmmaker

Cover to 'Batman: The Killing Joke' (left), Todd Phillips

The project is intended to be part of a still-developing label for Warners’ DC Entertainment properties.

This is no laughing matter: Warner Bros. has tapped

filmmaker Todd Phillips to co-write and possibly direct an origin movie of classic Batman villain The Joker.

Phillips will co-write the script with Scott Silver, writer of the 2002 Eminem movie

The project is intended to be part of a still-developing label for Warners’ DC Entertainment properties that will include projects that could stand apart from the big massive tentpoles that are tied to each other in a shared universe way.

movie franchise and is played by Jared Leto. The Joker movie in development, under the plan, would feature another actor and be made under another budget category. At this stage, the story is set in Gotham City in the early 1980s.

The new label would give Warners leeway to make more DC-oriented projects, unconstrained by continuity. 

One report stated that filmmaker Martin Scorsese was producing the project, but sources tell

franchise for the studio. It is one of the most successful comedy franchises of all time and helped launch the careers of actors Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis. Phillips last wrote, directed and produced

starring Miles Teller and Jonah Hill. Along with producing most of his own work, he also produced Cooper’s upcoming film

and most recently penned the upcoming crime drama

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