Phillips said that he, like most directors of his generation, “grew up worshiping Martin Scorsese” and said the best day of his filmmaking life was when he got to spend three hours with the master filmmaker.So given that small acquaintanceship, Phillips said he “felt bold enough to send him the script and ask him what he thought and maybe he'd want to come on as an executive producer.”
As Phillips explained, “(Scorsese) read the script and called me and we had a great 20 minute conversation about the script, but [he] also said, I can't do it because I'm doing [Netflix’s The] Irishman. We literally filmed them back to back, meaning he did Irishman and we shot Joker, but he was knee deep in prep for that epic.”
The director, who co-wrote the Joker script with Scott Silver, said “we had a nice conversation about the script on the phone. He told me what he loved about it. I don't necessarily want to talk about what we talked about, but it was amazing for me.”
Phillips then asked Scorsese if he could have Scorsese’s longtime producer Emma Tillinger Koskoff, who Phillips called “the queen of New York,” join the Joker production. “She runs New York movies because she works for Marty and she has the best crews, relationships with the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority],” Phillips explained.The Irishman premieres at the New York Film Festival this month before debuting on Netflix in November. Joker opens October 4.
For more on Joker, check out our review, discover how the film parallels Scorsese's King of Comedy, and find out what Joaquin Phoenix and director Todd Phillips had to say to critics who call Joker a "dangerous" movie.
