Joker could be an Oscar contender after winning a major award – digitalspy.com

DC crime drama Joker has just won Venice Film Festival’s top prize: the Golden Lion.

For those unfamiliar with the magnitude of this victory, Venice is usually a great testing of the waters for Oscar hopefuls – the history books speak for themselves.

Warner Bros.

Guillermo del Toro’s Best Picture winner at the 2018 Oscars, The Shape of Water, also won the Golden Lion, as did Ang Lee’s groundbreaking 2005 movie Brokeback Mountain and last year’s Netflix hit Roma, which were both successful in numerous categories at the Academy Awards.

Since Joker‘s world premiere at Venice last week, the first critical reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, so the movie’s success in the main competition isn’t exactly that surprising.

Then again, no other movie so heavily influenced by comic books has reached anywhere near this level of film festival prestige.

Will 2020 be the year the Academy Awards are crashed by an insane clown (again)? Time will tell.

Niko TaverniseWarner Bros.

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Meanwhile, actor Joaquin Phoenix opened up about the preparations he undertook prior to filming, with research of Pathological Laughter and Crying (PLC) being his springboard into building the character of Arthur Fleck.

Joker has a release date of October 4 in the US and UK.

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