He can't be worse than Jared Leto.
I'm gonna be a downer and say I don't like the concept of this movie. It serves no purpose, because it is an origin story to a nonexistent character. This joker doesn't exist elsewhere; it has no connections to previous incarnations (and it couldn't have). Plus, as already noted in the previous post, Joker doesn't have a canon origin so what purpose does this movie have? It could be a beautifully crafted tragic story and a masterpiece of a movie, but the sole fact that it's a Joker movie just screams audience exploitation. Also Joker without Batman just doesn't work. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main principle of the character hinges on the dynamic between the two. Take the Bat away and Joker pretty much loses his entire essence, because he mostly becomes another nihilistic, anarchistic psychopath.
Joaquin is great, though, no doubt about that.
They should call it Jester or Clown. Detach itself from the DC universe. Once the new batch of culture is curated we'll have to completely forget about this movie.
That’s my thought too. Like what happens after this movie? Will Joaquin’s Joker be in any new Batman movies?
At this point in time they don’t even have a Batman do they?
I get the vibe of this being a straight one-off film, rather than yet another tired franchise trail (least I hope anyway). Which is fine with me, like when we get all those countless comic book mini-stories that are self-contained in lore. Adaptation or not, it's different and refreshing and creates the image of the Joker as a person; a man. A damaged individual you could believably bump into on the streets. Compared to his usual gimmick of a psychopath seemingly beyond human and scientific comprehension, that feels larger than life.
What I don't want however, is them making the Joker into a sympathetic soul or a misunderstood good guy. Like Heath Ledger's Joker, you can still have a fresh & unique take on him, but he's still the Joker to the core without feeling like some imitation or a completely different person.