It Gets Weirder: Marc Maron In Talks To Join That Joaquin Phoenix JOKER Movie

Well, the saga of this super strange Todd Phillips (to my eternal disappointment, I keep thinking it’s going to be Todd Haynes) Joker origin movie continues. Along with Joaquin Phoenix starring and Robert De Niro joining as a talk show host, we now have the possibility of Marc Maron being in the movie as well.

This comes from Variety, who describes Maron’s potential character as follows:

According to sources, Maron would be portraying a booking agent on Robert De Niro’s talk show who plays a part in booking Phoenix’s character, and eventually causing him to go mad and become the Clown Prince of Crime.

Okay, so Maron will probably play a sleazy, pushy backstage Hollywood type. He can do that. But why would he want to do that? After being called to task for being sort of rude to Paul Rudd and to a lesser extent Josh Brolin about their comic book movie roles, Maron went on a rant about how little respect he has for these movies. (It’s at about 11:35 in his Gus Van Sant episode.)

So now he’s probably going to be in a Joker origin film. Does this mean the script is just so good, it passed Maron’s comic book movie smell test? Or does he want to move up in the world as an actor? Maybe it’s just the chance to work with De Niro? Who knows! But it adds another curiosity to an already curious project.

This is not a movie I would have ever asked for, but given the relatively small budget and talent involved, I’m leaning more toward a solid interest in this than I previously would have expected. On top of that, I kind of love Maron as an actor. As a result, I’m thinking positively about this all around but with caution.