Alec Baldwin is finally joining the Batman universe. The gravel-voiced 30 Rock star has signed on to play Thomas Wayne, the father of Bruce Wayne, the billionaire who would go on to become Batman following the murder of his parents in a Gotham City alley, in Todd Philips’ Joker.
The film is a standalone project centered around the iconic Clown Prince of Crime, with Joaquin Phoenix set to star at the titular villain.
In the original comic books, Thomas Wayne was a noble, kindly father whose brutal murder prompts his son Bruce to become a caped vigilante. But the version of Thomas played by Baldwin will reportedly be rather different. “The script paints Thomas Wayne as a cheesy and tanned businessman who is more in the mold of an Eighties Donald Trump,” sources close to the film told the Hollywood Reporter.
It is a role that should come easily to the 60-year-old actor, whose satirical impression of the US president on Saturday Night Live became a national talking point. This isn’t the first brush with Batman lore for Baldwin. The actor famously was in the running to play the Caped Crusader himself in Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989, after working with Burton on Beetlejuice the year before.
In the as-yet-untitled Joker film, Baldwin joins a cast led by Joaquin Phoenix as Batman’s laughing nemesis, alongside Robert De Niro, Marc Maron and Zazie Beetz. Martin Scorsese is on board as a producer for the supervillain origin story, which has been described as “a gritty and grounded hard-boiled crime film” reminiscent of Scorsese’s acclaimed 1976 film Taxi Driver.
The film will begin shooting in September and is expected to reach cinemas in October 2019.
Sources: Deadline, THR
