Editorials
Dear WB/DC: How to Learn the Right Lessons from ‘Joker’ and Avoid the Wrong Ones
It’s undeniable at this point: Joker is an enormous success. As I write this, its second weekend at the box office is on track to bring in ~$60m, signifying a less than 40% drop from its opening weekend. That is inarguably astounding. People are clearly motivated to check out this movie. And it’s unavoidable that Warner Bros. – and more specifically, their DC Comics film branch – are going to try and figure out how to replicate that achievement.
Now, this is not going to be a critical opinion piece when looking at Joker. You can hear my feelings towards the movie on my GenreVision episode. Instead, I want to examine what WB and DC should take away from Joker when thinking about how best to utilize their comic book stable moving forward. Movie studios rarely learn the right things from their successes, and I think Joker is a great opportunity to showcase what works and what doesn’t with these kinds of projects.
DON’T Make a Bunch of Villain Movies
When Joker was gaining good buzz and increased interest, I saw a lot of reactions clamoring for more solo movies focused on villains. This is the kind of shortsighted desire that is destined to fail.
Joker made sense as a solo movie for a number of reasons. The most important (and financially sound) reason being that the Joker is the most recognizable and influential villain in comic book history. As risky as Joker‘s approach to the material might have been, its subject character has been proven to be an enormous draw for audiences across the world. While there are plenty of other noteworthy villains – just in Batman’s rogues gallery alone – it’s highly unlikely that any of them have the kind of mass appeal to carry a singular film.
That’s not to say villains aren’t interesting from a narrative perspective. As someone who is intimately familiar with Batman stories in all forms of media, there are plenty of fantastic stories that can be told with a villain as the protagonist. But, to feel that Joker worked simply because it focused on a villain instead of a hero is missing the forest for a single tree. And if the DC film banner starts cranking out villain movies, it won’t help but feel like a crass, exploitative, and frankly uninspired maneuver after Joker.
Side note: I do think there is a good Catwoman movie to be made – she could certainly use some cinematic redemption – but that character has become so much less of a villain in modern interpretations that I don’t think she quite fits in with other potential villain movies.
DO Stray Away From the Shared Universe
When the cinematic marketplace is dominated by a single replicated experience, audiences will eventually begin to crave something new. This has happened time and time again over the years: the Western, the musical, the fantasy epic, etc.
For the last decade, superhero/comic book cinema has been overwhelmed by the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its particular brand of storytelling. This influence caused DC to try and replicate that model with… less than favorable results. Now, we’re beginning to see the DC canon start to embrace singular characters and franchises instead of attempting to create an overarching universal story.
And that is good. Let Marvel continue to do what they do best and let DC offer something different. Now, while the DC universe will continue to have tangential connections to other films, I think Joker proves that these connections alone aren’t what is going to drive people to the theater. Films like Birds of Prey and The Suicide Squad will somewhat be continuations of previous DC films, but the impetus to create some grand cinematic universe shouldn’t be what drives the DC stable. Compelling self-contained stories (whether that’s self-contained to a single film or a specific franchise) are something DC can excel at, and Joker has given them the kind of renewed confidence they should have in this regard.
DON’T Try to Go Gritty and Grim for Everything
A stripped-down, bleak take on Joker might not be what some people wanted, but it’s a direction that isn’t without merit in regards to the title character. Doing a downright horror film version of the Joker is something that you can argue makes sense.
However, that shouldn’t be the springboard for the entire DC canon to suddenly turn into a dark and brooding R-rated grimfest. This is my least concerned point regarding the fallout from Joker’s success since it’s pretty certain next year’s slate of films – Birds of Prey and Wonder Woman 1984 – won’t be gritty or anywhere near Joker’s specific take and tone.
Still, I don’t want WB thinking that this means Matt Reeves’ The Batman suddenly needs to copy what Joker was doing. The same goes for the rest of their properties. In fact, it would be invigorating to hear that WB was going to do another standalone one-off film but this time it was focused on Superman. And what would be really enticing would be if it was a bright, anachronistic, cheery, corny, and definitive take on the character that was aimed at an all-ages audience.
Finding what the correct tone is for each property is what seems to work for wide audiences, and it’s just the right direction to take when making these comic book properties into big tentpole events. While a grim and gritty version of Joker was the right call, that doesn’t mean it will be the right call for the rest of the DC films.
DO Let Directors Run With a Unique Vision
No matter how you fall in regards to your feelings on Joker, it’s very clear that it is a specific version from a particular creative voice. Jack Giroux of /Film wrote a great piece about how only Todd Phillips could have been the person to make Joker. It illuminates a really fascinating point about the modern-day landscape of comic book cinema.
Because the Marvel Cinematic Universe has to all line up as part of a greater world, it means that the movies can’t color too much outside the lines with their takes. That doesn’t mean they can’t produce good movies, but there is a reason why a common complaint about the MCU is their samey nature.
On the other hand, DC is often very good at allowing filmmakers to bring a unique style and perspective to their films. Even Zack Snyder’s movies are definitively Zack Snyder movies. The problem that arose for some viewers with that vision was that it felt incongruous to the characters and world that Snyder was playing with (see the previous section).
Allowing creatives to come onto these comic book films and create something that feels distinctly theirs has got to be appealing to filmmakers. That freedom to really play with the material and make it their own is something DC should really lean into. They may not always work, but they will always feel like standout pieces of comic book cinema.
DON’T Turn Everything Into a Prestige Picture
A lot of the fervor surrounding Joker has to do with its position as a prestige picture for the studio. Scuttlebutt about Joaquin Phoenix’s performance was already high, and winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival only made the film look more distinguished. Now, there are plenty of cries for Phoenix to be nominated for Best Actor for the Academy Awards.
That’s all fine and dandy. Awards conversations are often tiresome but it’s always nice to see genre fare getting recognized by the establishment. But, this shouldn’t mean that the DC comics characters should be mined for Oscar bait. The last thing I want to see is DC trying to figure out how best to manipulate their roster in order to garner some kind of high praise from the Academy.
Honestly, this is also something to talk about specifically with the character of the Joker. Thanks to big-screen portrayals by Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Joaquin Phoenix, and even Jared Leto, the Clown Prince of Crime is being somewhat pigeon-holed into having to be a Big Deal any time the character shows up in a live-action format. It’d be great to get a supporting turn from someone playing the Joker and it not be touted as some big deal either in terms of performance or how the actor approached the role.
It’s great that Joker is probably getting some folks to watch a comic book movie that might not do so otherwise. If part of that reasoning is because of its critical acclaim, cool. But, I don’t really want to see an Oscar bait take on anyone else in the DC universe.
DO Embrace the Distinct Nature of Your Characters
Much like the section about allowing directors to bring sharp and original takes to their films, DC should also recognize what’s so special about their characters and play to those strengths. Part of the reason Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam! were successful is that they feel like truly representative versions of their characters and their worlds.
The same can be said for Joker. Whether that representation is something you like is up to you, but it’s clearly something that has resonated with audiences and captivated their curiosity. It seems like audiences respond to movies about comic book characters that feel like strong, well-defined versions of those characters.
Instead of trying to make all your characters fit under a tonal umbrella (see the Shared Universe section), let filmmakers find what fascinates them about a particular character and expand upon that idea so that they can shape a version of that character that feels fresh and interesting. If artists are allowed to zero in on the best (read: most compelling) elements of these characters and work outward from there, we’ll get more on-screen heroes and villains that have the chance to become the standards for a certain generation of fans.
“Elevated Horror.” Of all the combinations in the English language, that one is the most insufferable.
It represents almost a decade of scary movies that, for the most part, took themselves too seriously. Horror responds to the moment, so its “why so serious” lean makes sense as we scuttle through the “worst of times” equation of Charles Dickens’ famous opening lines. But there’s still an opening and a need for a lighter approach; one that not only has fun with its audience but takes the piss out of a genre that is seemingly letting its newfound “respectability” go to its head.
Wes Craven believed devotees see horror films to let out their fears one primal scream at a time. At their core, these movies are roller coasters; they bring us as close to the edge as possible before pulling us back into a safety net of reality. The need for a bigger and badder coaster increases during times when the size of that net decreases.
There’s a thrill that comes from imagining being in a foot race with a madman, or outthinking the hordes of zombies on the other side of the door, plus the scavenger humans coming behind them. There’s even a rush that comes from imagining how one might deal with possession to see good triumph over evil in the end. It’s all about building tension and releasing it through catharsis. That cathartic release usually sounds like screams followed by laughter, which signals relief. Genre heavy hitters over the past 10 years offered very little of that respite when the credits rolled. Films like Hereditary, The Witch, Talk to Me, and even Smile (pick one) keep that tension going after the screen fades to black.
Hereditary
As the genre became obsessed with creating trauma metaphors, that lack of release made sense. Anyone with even a small sample size of traumatic experiences knows those emotions don’t magically resolve themselves in an allotted run time. But how much trauma can one take? Especially when there’s a mess going on outside that few of us can escape from. Movies offer that off-ramp, no matter how short.
Everything can’t be, nor should it be, “elevated.” Audiences need thoughtful explorations of life’s ills via monsters as much as they need murdering masked maniacs with kitchen knives. And no, it doesn’t have to go any deeper than that. Sometimes, a knife is just a knife, and it’s still worth our time and respect. As weird as it sounds, that simplicity is comforting not in spite of the trauma but because of it.
The worst of times should manifest more than just anguish. People need to laugh just as much as they need to think seriously about this moment in time. Even the Scream franchise forgot the meta rock upon which it built its church when the latest foray sacrificed the subtle comedy for serious drama. Scary Movie returned at the perfect moment. It provides the necessary laughs, but it’s not a cure-all.
This isn’t a call for Scary Movie imitators but a return to a mainstream landscape where Killer Klowns from Outer Space sat with The Serpent and the Rainbow, nestled neatly with the latest Nightmare on Elm Street, which took nothing away from The Vanishing.
They Live
Even They Live, John Carpenter’s horror sci-fi satire sandwich, kept its tongue firmly in cheek while discussing serious ideas still relevant in 2026. Yes, a film about aliens taking over the world through subliminal messaging only visible through coded sunglasses is, in fact, a tad silly. Carpenter understood that mainstream horror can’t become so self-important that it never looks itself in the mirror and laughs at that inherent silliness.
The thing is, horror historically excels at poking fun at itself. Most of the Scream franchise, The Cabin in the Woods, or The Blackening show adoration without kowtowing. They recognize tropes and trappings but invert them for an audience already in on the joke, but one that also finds solace in said conventions. This keeps the genre on its toes; once something gets parodied, it’s usually time to evolve. That breeds new ideas and fresh filmmakers, which not only strengthen the genre’s collective voice but also amplify it.
Get Out, as “elevated” as some critics want us to believe it is, is a cathartic, populist scary movie that spoke to an untapped audience rather than speaking down to them. Backrooms is one of the biggest horror hits in years, partially because it’s fine-tuned for modern-day teenagers instead of their parents. Movies like these tell everyone the genre is open for business; open for innovation and, yeah, open for new ways in which people can lovingly poke fun at with a wink and a nudge.
Horror needs dread as much as it needs laughter.
Catharsis is just as important as tension, and pulpy populism has the same merit as more high-brow material. Respectability shouldn’t come at the expense of an experience akin to walking through a haunted house. At a time when joy seems in short supply, horror should look to its past to map out its future, and make things just a tad brighter for audiences.
Backrooms
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