Todd Phillips now says Joker doesn't "follow anything from the comic books"

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About a year ago, before we knew too many specifics about director Todd Phillips Joker movie, we reported on a theory that the movie would adapt some plot points from Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s legendary The Killing Joke. A portion of that book is presented as a potential origin story for the Clown Prince Of Crime, telling the tale of an aspiring stand-up comedian who makes a deal with some mobsters to get money for his wife and then suffers tragedy after tragedy right up to the point where a rookie Batman—believing him to be the ringleader of a big heist—drops him into a vat of chemicals. Based on the trailer for Phillips’ Joker, that actually seems fairly close to what we’re getting (but with a sickly mother in place of a wife).