As production continues on Todd Phillips’ Joker in New York City, more pictures are starting to surface this weekend of star Joaquin Phoenix in costume and makeup as titular comic comic book villain.
First up are a couple of pictures of Phoenix in full costume. Not sure what is going on in this scene outside of it is set in a subway station and that people seem to be cowering in fear or running away in the background. Is this is the Joker’s final look or just a step along the character’s journey? I don’t know, but I do like what they seem to be going for here and am optimistic that Phoenix will be able to deliver something fairly chilling.
(Click on each photo for a larger version.)
Another set photo (below) that has surfaced is a bit of set dressing that one would find in any subway station – a map of all the train routes and their stops. Although shot at an angle which blurs out some detail, There are plenty of details that can be made out. Among the district names on the map are Burnside, which was the setting for a recent Batgirl comics series where it was depicted as something of the Brooklyn to Gotham’s Manhattan. Kane County is a longtime Batman comics locale, named after the characters nominal creator, writer Bob Kane. Sheldon Park looks to be a reference to Sheldon Moldoff, an artist who did uncredited worked on the Batman books back in the 1950s and ’60s. In the same vein, Burnley is a nod to Jack Burnely, who did similar ghost work credited to Batman creator Bob Kane on the daily Batman newspaper strip in 1945. Grant Field and Kckean Island are most likely nods to Grant Morrison and Dave McKean, the writer and artist respectively of the classic Arkham Asylum graphic novel. Grant Field also does double duty as a reference to Alan Grant, a Batman writer from the late 1980s through the early 2000s. And of course, Otisburg is a reference to the film that kicked off the modern age of superhero films, Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman: The Movie.
If one looks closely at the individual stops on the subway lines you’ll see even more name checking of Batman comics creators. The A, B and 0 line all start at the same station up in Kane County at a stop named Adams Dr, most likely for writer/artist Neil Adams. The A line also name checks writers Jim Starlin (Batman: A Death In The Family) and Steve Englehart (creator of Bruce Wayne paramour Silver St. Cloud) as well as Karen Berger, who was the editor for Arkham Asylum. The B train has a stop named after writer/artist Joe Stanton while Fort Hamilton on the D line could be a nod to Neil Hamilton who played Commissioner Gordon on the iconic 1966 Batman TV series. (Actually, I see a second Fort Hamilton stop on the A line as well!)
The H line also has a Wayne Avenue stop, but that makes sense that Bruce Wayne’s family, one of the oldest and most influential in the city’s history, would have at least a street named after them.
