‘Joker’: Zazie Beetz Says Todd Phillips “Rewrote The Whole Thing” While On Set

All eyes seem to be on the upcoming “Shazam” film when discussing Warner Bros’ upcoming superhero slate for 2019. However, the most interesting film coming from the DC universe this year is probably the Todd Phillips-directed “Joker,” starring Joaquin Phoenix. And while there’s not much information out there about the film, outside of a billion set photos, actress Zazie Beetz recently discussed the film and dropped some interesting, if not a bit concerning, insight into the production.

During an interview with MTV at the Sundance Film Festival, where she’s promoting her upcoming thriller “Wounds” (our review), Beetz was asked about the “Joker” standalone film. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t have much she could say, but did discuss what it was like during the production of the film, which apparently included very late rewrites.

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“The script was great. We rewrote the whole thing while we were shooting it,” Beetz said. “Literally, we would go into Todd’s trailer and write the scene for the night and then do it. During hair and makeup we’d memorize those lines and then do them and then we’d reshoot that three weeks later.”

She continued, “We had to do everything then because Joaquin had lost so much weight that we couldn’t do reshoots later on so we were figuring it out. But Todd’s quick at getting stuff done so we always had extra time.”

Normally, we’d think that any film that is rewritten the night before shooting is doomed for failure and will ultimately feel rushed. And the DC film universe hasn’t been immune to this, with David Ayer being very honest about his rushed time working on the script for “Suicide Squad” and its inevitable rewrites and reshoots. But it does appear that Beetz is talking about something a little different, which gives us a modicum of hope that maybe, just maybe, we don’t have to ring the alarm on “Joker.”

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Talking about the necessity of reworking scenes the night before due to Phoenix’s schedule and weight change is interesting and does shed some light on the production. Most of these big-budget comic book films require weeks of additional photography months later, but it appears Phillips didn’t have that luxury with “Joker.” So, we’ll just have to see if the nightly rewriting/rehearsal sessions were fruitful or not.

“Joker” hits theaters on October 4.

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