A deleted Joker scene would have clarified a key character’s fate, according to director Todd Phillips.
In the DC Comics film, Arthur Fleck (portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix) is seen several times interacting with his neighbour Sophie Dumond (Zazie Beetz).
However, it’s revealed towards the end of the movie that Fleck doesn’t actually know Dumond and that their relationship was entirely imagined by him.
Dumond is last scene after Fleck breaks into her apartment, leaving Dumond to confront the villain-in-the-making.
Viewers have wondered whether Fleck kills Dumond at this point of the film – but Phillips said that the movie clearly indicates that he doesn’t.
“He doesn’t kill her, definitively,” the director told Indiewire. “As the filmmaker and the writer I am saying he doesn’t kill her. We like the idea that it’s almost like a litmus test for the audience to say, ‘how crazy is he?’
“Most people that I’ve spoken to think he didn’t kill her because they understand the idea that he only kills people that did him wrong. She had nothing to do with it. Most people understood that, even as a villain, he was living by a certain code. Of course he didn’t kill this woman down the hall.”
In fact, Phillips told the website that Dumond was supposed to appear one more time after the scene in which she finds Fleck in her flat.
According to Phillips, a deleted scene shows Dumond watching Fleck on TV when he appears on his hero Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro)’s show.
The scene didn’t make it because Phillips wanted to focus on telling the story from Fleck’s point of view.
Phillips recently published a series of behind-the-scenes photos taken while working on Joker, which show an apparent reference to Catwoman, another DC Comics character.
Phoenix, meanwhile, has suggested that he would be willing to appear in a Joker sequel.
