‘The People’s Joker’: The unauthorized Joker movie that was withdrawn from the Toronto Film Festival for rights

They say imitation is the biggest compliment, but certainly Warner Bros. disagrees with that, since forced to withdraw a parody of “Joker” from the Toronto Film Festival after only one screening. Directed by Vera Drew, “The Joker’s People” is the only unauthorized version of the DC’s iconic villain’s origin story told from a queer perspective.

The film premiered at the Canadian competition, after which it disappeared from the official schedule. On the official TIFF website, the festival included a notice confirming that the cancellation of “The People’s Joker” screenings is due to Warner Bros. which owns the rights to the Joker, Harley Quinn and other DC characters appearing in the film. : “The director withdrew this film due to a rights issue. We apologize for any inconvenience. People who have purchased a ticket will receive an email from TIFF customer service with purchase information..

On Twitter, the director shared the tweet from a person claiming that the film had received a stop order from Warner, as well as a message from another user with the hashtag #FreeThePeoplesJoker. As revealed by Collider, Drew was confident that there would be no problems with the film showing, since, Initially, it was protected by the law of fair use, a legal criterion that allows limited use of the protected material without the need for authorization. when, as in this case, it is a parody. However, it seems Drew went too far with his reinterpretation of the Todd Phillips film.

In a recent interview with the aforementioned medium during the Toronto Festival, Drew assured it “the film can be distributed 100%, as it is fully protected by the law of fair use for being a parody”. “The only strange thing is that no one had taken those characters and that intellectual property to personalize them in this way”Keep it up. “This is what makes it look more dangerous than it actually is. Let’s see, I get it, I put ‘illegal comic based movie’ on the poster, but that was to fill places. Literally no reason to worry about the repercussions. legal in this case Without going into detail, We’ve done everything we can to make sure we can. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have spent two years of my life making an illegal Joker movie.”.

For now, Warner hasn’t officially commented on the subject, but it is clear that Drew’s film did them no good and, after all, he wasn’t quite as sure as the director thought he would see the light at a festival of the caliber of Toronto.

The real ‘Jolly’

The version that will be released, of course, is the official sequel to the 2019 hit, ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’, which will be released in theaters (if there is no news), on October 4, 2024. The film is still told with Joaquin Phoenix in the as Arthur Fleck, with the stellar addition of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn and the (rumored) return of Zazie Beetz as the Joker’s neighbor. Also, these days the secondary cast is emerging, with the signings of Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener and Jacob Lofland.