David Fincher Calls 'Joker' Movie a 'Betrayal of the Mentally Ill'

Acclaimed director David Fincher is sharing his thoughts on the movie Joker and why he considers it to be a “betrayal of the mentally ill.”

Fincher talked about Joker‘s success in contrast to his movie Fight Club, which was much more difficult to get made back in the late 1990s.

“Nobody would have thought they had a shot at a giant hit with Joker had The Dark Knight not been as massive as it was,” Fincher told The Telegraph.

“I don’t think ­anyone would have looked at that material and thought, Yeah, let’s take [Taxi Driver’s] Travis Bickle and [The King of Comedy’s] Rupert Pupkin and conflate them, then trap him in a betrayal of the mentally ill, and trot it out for a billion dollars,” Fincher added.

The two characters that Fincher referenced were both played by Robert De Niro, who happens to appear in Joker.

Fincher said that after early screenings of Fight Club, “the general view afterwards among the studio types was, ‘Our careers are over.’ The fact we got that film made in 1999 is still, to my mind, a miracle.”

The upcoming Fincher movie Mank is getting tons of Oscar buzz and the trailer was released last month.