Joker Movie Director Todd Phillips To Earn $100 Million After The Movie's Huge Success - Report

Joker movie director Todd Phillips is reportedly going to take home a huge payday in the wake of the comic book movie's massive box office success.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Phillips will make close to $100 million from the film thanks to how his contract was arranged. The report says Phillips declined being paid an upfront salary in exchange for earning a bigger piece of Joker's box office performance. With Joker making more than $1 billion at the box office, Phillips is getting paid big-time.

THR noted that Phillips also had same deals with Warner Bros. for the first Hangover movie, which he directed. He earned a sizable payday from this as well given the movie made more than $467 million on an budget of only $35 million.

This is not the first time we're hearing about Phillips' contract with Warner Bros. for Joker, as The Wall Street Journal was among the first to report on it back in October. This is, however, the first time that a major publication is putting a number to Phillips' reported earnings.

Phillips was asked by IndieWire to comment on the reported $100 million payday for Joker, but he declined to say anything. For what it's worth, star Joaquin Phoenix also reportedly signed a "generous" profit-sharing deal with Warner Bros. for Joker, but there is no word on how much he might have made from the film. Warner Bros. agreed to the deals with Phillips and Phoenix because they reportedly did not see Joker being such a big hit.

The same THR story said Warner Bros. is moving ahead with a sequel to Joker, but Deadline followed up with a report of its own saying no firm plans are in place yet. Phillips himself told IndieWire that he has spoken about ideas for a Joker sequel with Phoenix and executives at Warner Bros. However, there are no solid plans yet for a sequel, he said.

When Phillips pitched Joker to Warner Bros. executives, he did so with the idea that it could be the first movie in a new series of "darker, more character-focused comic book films." However, Phillips said the executives said no to this idea, but decided to greenlight Joker anyway as a standalone movie.

Joker has been in theatres for more than a month, and it continues to make money. This past weekend, the movie made a further $3 million to stay inside the Top 10.