In the movie industry, we often hear about childhood fans growing up to work in adaptations of their favorite stories and characters, but that's not always the case. According to Joker producer Emma Tillinger Koskoff, she is one of the rare people to work on a comic book movie who doesn't actually enjoy viewing them.
“It’s not my preferred genre, the comic book genre," Koskoff told AP News. "I literally can’t watch those movies. I try but I can’t. I should but I can’t. But I love this movie. Even if I didn’t work on this movie I would love this movie.”
To be fair, not being a fan can actually have its advantages when telling a story. Writer-director Todd Phillips emphasized that it was important to distance the comic book industry from movie-making when working on an adaptation. As he pointed out, this was important when dealing with Joker's origin,
“He doesn’t fall into a vat of acid and come out laughing," Phillips said. "That’s a comic book thing.” Still, Phillips reassured fans that doesn't mean liking comic books is a bad thing, and that we need many interpretations.
“What we’re trying to do with this film is do something entirely different from the comic book movies that have come before. And not because those aren’t cool but just because we want to try something different," he said.
“But this won’t be the last Joker movie ever made," Phillips continued. "Something tells me that in 10 years someone else is going to do something. There have been five iterations of this character already and they’re all brilliantly unique. This is one more group’s interpretation of a character that can be infinitely interpreted.”
In the end, it really takes all viewpoints to tell a good story, with people who don't even like a certain genre still finding ways of mastering the craft.
Directed by Todd Phillips, Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Bill Camp, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Douglas Hodge, Marc Maron, Josh Pais and Shea Whigham. The film arrives in theaters Oct. 4.