Todd Phillips’ chart-topping Joker is getting a second wind before the holiday blockbusters takeover. In the face of upcoming films like Jumanji: The Next Level (December 13), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (December 20), Little Women (December 25), and more, Joker returns to IMAX theatres for one more week.
Starting today, December 6, you can see Joker in what Phillips calls “the best format.” Joker will stay in IMAX theatres across the country for one week, giving you a chance to see Joaquin Phoenix’s unsettling performance before the film’s digital HD release on December 17. Phillips shared the news on Instagram.
Joker’s success has taken the film industry by storm. It crossed $96 million after opening on October 4 and made a little over $1 billion worldwide to date. With an estimated budget of $70 million, Joker has become the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time and the most profitable comic book movie in history. While Phillips has said there are currently no plans for a sequel, he clarified he will do “anything Joaquin wants to do.”
We gave Joker an “Essential” rating in our review, saying, “Joker succeeds, without equivocation, because it transforms the villain into the populist antihero we need him to be now. Joker wears its influences on its maroon sleeves, but it also carves its own gashes through the blood-soaked landscape of contemporary comic book movies, offering something that, despite teetering on the shoulders of 80 years of history, is wonderfully fresh, dangerously exciting, undeniably entertaining, and rock-solid in its artistry. It might make you uncomfortable, and it will no doubt stay with you long after the curtains close; great movies often do.”
Joker will be available on Blu-Ray, DVD, and UHD Blu-Ray on January 7, and on HBO Max when it launches in May 2020.