Joaquin Phoenix Might Become The Next Joker In New Standalone Prequel

An origin story about one of Gotham City's biggest villains, the Joker, seems to have found its lead in Puerto Rican actor Joaquin Phoenix of The Gladiator and Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line.

Gotham's criminal trickster-in-chief looks set for interpretation by a new actor in Joaquin Phoenix. After Jack Nicholson (1989), Heath Ledger (2008) and now Jared Leto in Suicide Squad (2016), Phoenix could be next in line to play the tortured and tortuous spirit.

Either way, he's currently the number one choice of director Todd Phillips, best known for comedy movies like Road Trip, Old School," and The Hangover trilogy, but who turned his hand to more serious fare -- albeit with a comic twist -- in gun-running biopic War Dogs.

According to Variety, the actor who was Oscar-nominated for his performances as Emperor Commodus in Gladiator, country musician Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, and the leader of a fictional cult in The Master has entered discussions with Warner Bros over the Joker Role.

The prequel is proposed as a standalone separate from the ongoing DC Extended Universe story line, in which Jared Leto is expected to retain his Joker role from Suicide Squad.

Leonardo DiCaprio was previously approached for the prequel; Warners had earlier expressed interest in bringing Phoenix into the DC universe when casting for Lex Luthor in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.