The highly anticipated Joker certainly paints the titular iconic comics character in a very different light, but as it turns out, finding this specific take on the character was a journey unto itself. The film originated with an idea by co-writer/director Todd Phillips, who approached Warner Bros. with the notion of crafting a standalone, one-off origin story movie about the Batman villain that would feel more like Taxi Driver than Batman Begins. He enlisted phenomenal actor Joaquin Phoenix to fill the role, and the two set about crafting a gritty, violent, disturbing character study about how a …