Todd Phillips reveals the name of Joaquin Phoenix's Clown Prince of Crime in the upcoming Joker origin movie. After spending the last few years creating and building out a shared universe for their mainstay DC Comics characters, Warner Bros. and DC Films are now looking to start developing standalone projects as well. Doing that is what led them to successes like the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, so it makes sense that they want to get back to basics.

Among the various projects that DC Films has in development, the first standalone movie that will remain disconnected to the overarching (unofficially titled) DC Extended Universe is Phillips' Joker movie, starring Phoenix in the role of the Clown Prince of Crime. Since this is supposed to be an origin movie, audiences will be seeing the Joker for the first time like they've never seen him before - both literally and metaphorically. And one of the things that this new movie will give audiences is the Joker's real name.

Related: Joker Movie Director Reveals First Photo of Joaquin Phoenix in Character

On Instagram today, Todd Phillips shared the first photo of Joaquin Phoenix in character, which was accompanied by a host of photos from the set of the upcoming DC movie, exposing all sorts of details about the story. In addition to revealing the first look (of sorts) at Phoenix's Joker, the social media post also confirmed the character's real name as Arthur. Take a look:

Earlier this year, it was reported that Phoenix's character in the Joker movie would be named Arthur Fleck, and this new social media post confirms that report. What's interesting, though, is that one of the cornerstones of the character's uniqueness is the fact that no one knows his real name. And when Batman tried to recently uncover that mystery for himself (while he was temporarily a god, for all intents and purposes), all he learned was that there are three Jokers in existence. At one point, it was suggested that the character's first name was Jack, which coincided with Tim Burton's use of Jack Napier for Jack Nicholson's Joker in the 1989 Batman movie, but none of that translated over to the core comics.

And now, the studio is looking to give general audiences all of the answers they need regarding the Joker's origin story as well as who he really is. Giving people the name Arthur Fleck, though, doesn't do much seeing as there isn't a comic book counterpart for that name, though there are numerous characters named Arthur in association with Batman. As for the rest of the Clown Prince of Crime's origin, audiences will have to wait and see what happens when the Joker movie releases in theaters next year.

More: Theory: Joaquin Phoenix's Joker Is A Trump Version Of Batman

Source: Todd Phillips

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