I think it was the right mix of being a comic book movie, the controversy, and a rare appeal to a more adult audience than most (if not all) comic book movies.

Everything to be honest. Even with polarizing reviews it was able to be an event, haven't heard this many people talk about a movie since Endgame.

The overseas performance is truly crazy. It's about to pass Suicide Squad's WW total with still more to go.

Well made film with a different take on the superhero genre. It was unique AND good. Simple as that.

Everything.

- The perfect combination of actor and role
- The right timing with how people feel about society, rich people, etc. right now
- Great marketing
- Joker is a really popular character

The movie being sold as Joker origins.

Mostly the answers already said. To add, I called this out to be a watercooler movie of the fall a while back but think Venom doesn't get as much love as it should for paving the way a bit for Joker.

The superhero twist of the unusual approach helped socialize moviegoers to embrace the non-Marvel Disney formula last year with Venom worked wonders again.

The festival win early on though certainly accelerated buzz.

Streisand effect definitely helped it. I know all the critics/opinion writers saying the movie was "dangerous" and "problematic" made me more excited to see it and probably attracted people to seeing it as well

It's becoming something of a rule of thumb that any film/TV show praised as 'woke' is mediocre and predictable and anything called 'problematic' tends to be insightful/geniunely funny/interesting/etc.

Indeed. Also story of the culture in general.

(when in fact, it's the opposite. as typically anything problematic is "old school" and usually lazy)

That's ridiculous. Nobody is down on Joker for being too interesting and insightful. But sure, people probably are enjoying the naughty feeling they get when they see it, knowing that they are potentially annoying a liberal somewhere out there.

Yet, you're statement also could be applied to "Hostel is a very smart move and people just don't understand what the long and winded torture scenes actually meant" or "Get Out sucked because some white people felt more cultured when watching it."

It's not as black and white as either side makes it out to be. Movies of any type could be interesting or conform to a predictable narrative. Change and progress are not so linear, predictable and convenient as the powerful would want them to be. The reality is more complex and frequently runs counter to expectations.

If you want to talk about old school and lazy, it's the movies that don't challenge those expectations. It's movies like Dark Phoenix and Gemini Man that represent that mindset. The same old morality wears thin when it leaves you without any satisfactory explanation for the issues they touch on. It's exposed as uninspired for what it's missing. Dark Phoenix was the most timid and tame version of nonconformity. The trailers seemed somewhat interesting; "what they don't understand they seek to destroy". But for all it's pretense, the movie did little to challenge norms. I say this as someone who probably liked Dark Phoenix and Gemini Man more than most. Despite it all, despite being so vapid and shallow, they are better, more insightful and smarter than the society that judges them.

Now I have not yet seen joker, so this could change, but I want to comment anyway. Compared to the movies above, joker is a departure from norms. It may be old school in the sense that it echoes mobster movies and others it tries to emulate, like Taxi Driver, but some movies are common because they tell people what they want to hear, some are common despite what people want to hear. Joker seems to result from the cognitive dissonance involved in a superficially comfortable world that tries to avoid confronting the reality of its persistent problems. It reflects a part of itself that it tries to keep hidden beneath addiction to fossil fuels, antibiotics, and opioids. Where the pressure of resistance keeps building, 'solutions' are problems, real solutions are delayed and avoided, and they will tell you everything is fine when it is tearing at the seams. I don't think joker appeals to laziness; it is a response to laziness.

Wow what a contrast. Worth bringing this back up. Joker 2 flopping is very in vogue for the strangeness of the 2020s.