Seriously, The New Joker Movie Just Added a Trump Character

Perhaps because faking a mental breakdown for a crappy mockumentary is an almost supervillain-level scheme, Joaquin Phoenix is set to play the Joker in an upcoming movie. The Todd Phillips-directed film will also feature Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, and Marc Maron. And this week we learned of another big casting decision: Alec Baldwin will play Thomas Wayne, a guy famously so brilliant that he manages a billion-dollar company, but so dumb that he puts on formal wear and leads his family through a place literally called "Crime Alley."

Yup, despite the fact that Batman himself likely won't show up in Joker, his dad totally will. And while most versions of the character depict him as a distinguished physician, Baldwin's version will reportedly be "a cheesy and tanned businessman who is more in the mold of a 1980s Donald Trump." So because this movie sits outside of the continuity of the other DCEU movies, Wayne will now be a Trump-like jackass who probably amassed his fortune thanks to a time-travelling sports almanac. Plus he'll be played by the guy who plays Trump on Saturday Night Live, paving the way for Stefon and the Church Lady to one day join the DCEU.

The movie is rumored to be based on the classic comic (and godawful animated movie) The Killing Joke, which reveals the Joker's sympathetic origins as a destitute stand-up comedian who turns to crime (instead of simply producing multiple podcasts like he would today).

This means that the decision behind turning Wayne into Trump may be a logistical one. If we're supposed to be rooting for a character we know will become the Joker, the only way to get audiences to side with a crazed megalomaniac clown is to pit him against an even bigger- well, you see where we're going with this.

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