Yahoo News Joker's Joaquin Phoenix lands next movie role
Joaquin Phoenix has landed his next lead role in a gay romance film directed by Todd Haynes.
The Carol director, whose film May December recently debuted at Cannes Film Festival, confirmed that Phoenix will appear in his next project, which the Joker star actually helped co-develop with Haynes.
"The next film is a feature that's an original script that I developed with Joaquin Phoenix based on some thoughts and ideas he brought to me," Haynes told IndieWire. "We basically wrote with him as a story writer.
Related: New Joker 2 set photos reveal return to first movie's iconic location
"Me and Jon Raymond and Joaquin share the story credit. And we hope to be shooting it beginning early next year. It's a gay love story set in 1930s L.A."
The film is currently untitled, but the rating has already been classified as NC-17.
"Joaquin was pushing me further and going, 'No, let's go further'," Haynes added. "This will be an NC-17 film."
Phoenix has had a busy 2023 to date, with the release of director Ari Aster's new thriller Beau is Afraid. He's also been filming for Joker: Folie à deux, the prequel to the 2019 Joker film, which earned him a Best Actor Oscar in 2020.
Related: First look at Joaquin Phoenix and multiple Jokers in Joker 2
Audiences also saw a glimpse of Phoenix in Ridley Scott's Napoleon Bonaparte film in a first-look image shared in April.
The film, titled Napoleon, will be released in cinemas this November, before arriving on Apple TV+ at a later (and yet unspecified) date.
At Cannes Film Festival 2023, Haynes told IndieWire that he's keeping equally busy work-wise.
"All I can do is just keep hunkering down and committing to each project," he said. "I have more features planned. I have also episodic projects coming that are planned, that are really exciting.
"I'm going back to work with Kate Winslet with something she brought me for HBO," he added.
Haynes last worked with Winslet on the three-part HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce, based on the 1941 novel of the same by James M Cain.
Joker: Folie à Deux is scheduled for a cinema release date of October 4, 2024. Joker is available to buy on Blu-ray or streaming now.
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