Alec Baldwin joins Joaquin Phoenix's Joker movie in key role

Alec Baldwin has joined Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker movie, EW has confirmed.

In a surprising move, Baldwin will play Thomas Wayne, the father of Bruce Wayne (surprising as the role has historically been a bit brief and thankless in previous Batman films).

THR first reported the news, adding that rumored costars Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, and Marc Maron are also on board, and that Thomas Wayne will be a “cheesy and tanned businessman who is more in the mold of a 1980s Donald Trump” than how he’s traditionally portrayed (as a warm-hearted billionaire philanthropist intent on bettering Gotham City who’s cruelly gunned down by a mugger in front of his young son). Baldwin also, of course, regularly plays a wildly cartoonish version of Trump on Saturday Night Live.

The Joker film is also said to be a darker, modestly budgeted character-based drama compared to the bombastic spectacle of Warner Bros.’ other DC Comics titles like Justice League and Suicide Squad.

Production on Joker (just that, not The Joker) will begin this fall, with Phoenix playing the demented supervillian.

The official description: “Under the direction of Todd Phillips, the film centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of a man disregarded by society is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale.”