The AMC theater in downtown Chicago smelled heavily of stale popcorn butter, damp winter coats, and the cheap cologne of the three teenagers sitting a row ahead.
Eli slumped down into his cramped fabric seat, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He was twenty-four, a third-year architecture student, and he was currently running on three hours of sleep and a lukewarm energy drink. It was 11:55 PM on a Thursday.
"If I fall asleep during the second act, just elbow me in the ribs," Eli mumbled, dropping his hands and looking over at his roommate.
Jackson, who had been aggressively refreshing his phone for the last ten minutes, just shook his head. "You're not going to fall asleep. I've been waiting for this movie for two months, Eli. If you snore, I'm leaving you here."
Eli sighed, settling back. He didn't care about the movie. He knew Daniel Miller directed it, and he knew the guy made good stuff, but Eli wasn't a comic book guy. He was just here because Jackson had paid for the ticket and promised him lunch tomorrow. He fully expected to watch a few CGI explosions, some guys in tights punching each other, and then go home to sleep.
The lights went completely down. The trailers ended.
Two hours later, Eli hadn't blinked in what felt like ten minutes.
The theater was packed to absolute capacity, but it was dead, suffocatingly quiet. Nobody was crunching on popcorn. Nobody was whispering to their friends. The ambient noise of a crowded room had been entirely sucked into the massive IMAX screen.
Eli felt physically tense. His shoulders were locked near his ears, and his hands were gripping the plastic armrests of his seat.
On screen, the descent of Harleen Quinzel was playing out. It wasn't the straight-razor scene with the judge that had Eli holding his breath, though that had made the entire theater physically recoil. It was the scene playing right now, in the dim, flickering light of a destroyed evidence locker.
The Joker had Harleen backed. The atmosphere was completely toxic. He wasn't trying to woo her. He was trying to break whatever was left of her clinical, professional mind.
Daniel Miller moved with that terrifying, unpredictable slouch. He stepped into Margot Robbie's space, entirely violating her boundaries. He reached up with a dirty, pale hand, his fingers digging roughly into her jawline, forcing her to look at him. And then he kissed her.
It wasn't romantic. It was a violent, abrasive display of dominance. It was meant to be the final push to shatter her.
For a split second on screen, Harleen froze. Her eyes went wide. Eli expected her to push him away, to hit him, or to finally run.
Instead, a terrifying shift happened.
Harleen's eyes didn't fill with tears. They darkened. A manic, desperate energy flooded her expression. She didn't shrink away from the dominance. She met it. Her hands shot up, grabbing the heavy, dirty lapels of his purple coat in a white-knuckle grip. She yanked him forcefully back down to her level, tilting her head and kissing him back with a feral, aggressive passion that completely caught the Joker off guard.
The kiss stretched out, messy and chaotic, a physical manifestation of her completely surrendering to the madness and taking it as her own.
Eli felt a cold sweat on the back of his neck. The dynamic was so incredibly messed up, so deeply unhealthy, but it was impossible to look away. It rewired the entire narrative of the characters in thirty seconds of screen time.
The movie pushed toward its bleak, chaotic conclusion. When the final shot cut to black and the quiet, un-scored credits began to roll, the theater remained completely silent.
Eli sat there, his heart hammering a heavy, erratic rhythm against his ribs. He felt drained. He felt like he had just held his breath underwater for two hours.
The overhead house lights slowly flickered on, painfully bright.
Eli looked over at Jackson.
Jackson was just staring at his empty hands resting in his lap, his jaw slightly slack. He didn't say anything about the cinematography. He didn't cheer.
"Come on," Eli said quietly, his voice sounding entirely too loud in the silent theater.
They stood up and shuffled out of the aisle, joining the slow, muted mass of people heading for the exits. The lobby was oddly quiet for a midnight premiere. People were walking to the parking garage with their heads down, processing the heavy, oppressive weight of the film.
They got into Jackson's beat-up sedan. Jackson turned the key in the ignition. The radio blasted to life, playing a loud pop song.
Jackson violently slapped the dashboard, turning the radio off instantly.
They sat in the dark car, the engine idling, the heater slowly blowing warm air into the cabin. A full minute passed in total silence.
Eli leaned his head back against the headrest and let out a long, shaky exhale.
"I feel like I need to take a shower," Eli muttered, staring at the ceiling of the car. "Like... a really hot shower with industrial soap."
Jackson swallowed hard, putting the car into gear. "Yeah. That was... fucked up."
"He's out of his mind," Eli said, looking out the window as they pulled out of the garage. "That guy isn't a director. He's a psychopath with a camera."
---
Monday morning in Burbank.
Jonah Gantry sat behind his massive, polished oak desk on the top floor of the Warner Bros. executive building. The Los Angeles skyline stretched out behind him through the floor-to-ceiling windows, completely oblivious to the earthquake that had just hit the industry.
The office was quiet. The only sound was the low hum of the air conditioning.
Gantry was staring at a single sheet of paper resting in the exact center of his otherwise empty desk. It was the final, verified weekend box office spreadsheet sent up from the accounting department ten minutes ago.
He picked up his heavy metal reading glasses, slid them onto his face, and read the number at the bottom of the page for the fifth time.
Domestic Opening Weekend (3 Days): $165,420,000.
Gantry let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. He took off the glasses and dropped them onto the desk.
One hundred and sixty-five million dollars. In a single weekend. In October.
It wasn't just a hit. It was a complete obliteration of the record books. It was the highest-grossing opening for an R-rated movie in the history of cinema, beating the previous record holder by tens of millions of dollars. The global numbers, which were still rolling in from foreign markets, were projecting a trajectory that was frankly making the WB accountants dizzy.
Gantry leaned back in his expensive leather chair, turning his chair slightly to look out the window.
He thought back to the board meeting. He remembered the silver-haired executive sweating through his expensive suit, demanding that they force Daniel Miller to cut the straight-razor scene. They had been terrified of the R-rating. They had been terrified of alienating the teenagers.
Gantry had staked his entire reputation, and his job as CEO, on backing Miller's play. He had told his board to shut up and let the kid work.
He reached over to the small wet bar built into the bookshelf behind his desk, poured two fingers of aged scotch into a heavy glass, and took a slow sip.
He didn't even like the movie.
Gantry had watched it at the premiere, and it had actively unsettled him. It was too dark, too oppressive, and Daniel's performance had made his skin crawl. It wasn't the kind of movie Gantry wanted to watch on a Sunday afternoon.
But as he looked back at the spreadsheet, looking at the nine-figure number printed in bold black ink, he didn't care. The movie was a cultural phenomenon.
The intercom on his desk buzzed.
"Mr. Gantry," his assistant's voice came through the speaker. "I have the head of distribution on line one, and the PR department wants to know how to handle the trades. They're asking for official statements."
"Tell PR to put out a standard victory press release. Thank the fans, praise the director, all the usual bullshit," Gantry said, pressing the button. "And patch distribution through. We need to lock down more IMAX screens for the second weekend. The demand is going to bottleneck."
Gantry picked up the phone. It was going to be a very busy, very profitable week.
---
By Tuesday, the traditional media narrative had completely abandoned trying to write standard movie reviews. The film was beyond a simple letter grade or a star rating. The trades were entirely focused on the insane, unprecedented behind-the-scenes reality of what had just happened.
The headlines dominating the internet were a mix of awe and industry terror.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:The Ultimate Flex: How Daniel Miller Conquered Warner Bros. From the Inside and Delivered a Masterpiece.
VARIETY:Beginner's Luck or Absolute Genius? Evaluating Daniel Miller's Unprecedented, Terrifying Acting Debut.
DEADLINE:The 165 Million Dollar R-Rating. How Daniel Miller Just Changed the Rules of the R-rated Cinema.
But while the trades focused on the money and the studio politics, the actual audience—the people buying the tickets—were having a collective meltdown in real-time.
On Reddit, the official r/movies discussion thread for Joker had been pinned to the top of the subreddit. Within forty-eight hours, it had amassed over sixty thousand comments, crashing the page layout multiple times.
The tone of the thread was chaotic. Nobody was trying to write intellectual film critiques. They were just trying to process the trauma.
u/xX_cinema_Xx: bro the kiss scene??? i literally stopped breathing. he grabs her face looking like he wants to murder her and she just pulls him back in and eats his face. the whole theater was dead silent. margot robbie is actual mother for that.
u/drifter99: Honestly i spent a months saying miller casting himself was pure billionaire ego. i thought he was gonna get acted off the screen by ray, colin and elias thorne. i will eat glass. dude is a menace. the razor scene made me want to throw up.
u/pizza_slayer_420: nah but can we talk about the voice? why does he sound like that. it sounds like his throat is full of gravel and blood. i walked to my car in the dark after the 10pm showing and every shadow looked like him.
u/muse69: everyone is talking about daniel but florence pugh wasn't even in the movie and she won. she gets to go home to that guy.
u/film_nerd_88: idk how they got an R rating past the wb executives but thank god they did. if someone else made this it would have been a joke. the hospital explosion practical effect goes incredibly hard.
u/trashpanda_01: lmao the scene where he just shoots the cop and doesn't even look at him. zero hesitation. best comic book movie ever made idc.
u/musesarelame: @u/muse69 don't you mean she should be scared?
The internet was an echo chamber of shock, fear, and absolute obsession. Memes were being generated by the thousands. Clips of the trailer were being analyzed frame by frame.
The world was entirely consumed by Daniel Miller.
---
The air inside the walls of the Bel Air estate was perfectly still.
Outside the heavy iron gates, the world was actively losing its mind. A swarm of paparazzi had essentially set up a permanent camp at the bottom of the long driveway, their long-lens cameras pointed hopelessly at the dense tree line. Earlier that morning, a local news helicopter had hovered a few miles away, trying to catch a glimpse of the property before private security threatened them with airspace violations.
But down by the pool, in the sprawling backyard of the villa, it was a completely different reality.
The sun was beating down, hot and bright. The water in the massive infinity pool was a pristine, crystal clear blue, reflecting the cloudless California sky.
There was a strict rule in place today: absolutely no cell phones allowed outside the house.
Margot was lying on her stomach on a plush, oversized sun lounger, wearing a simple black two-piece swimsuit. The heat of the sun felt heavy and comforting on her back. She was holding a thick stack of printed papers that Tom Wiley had dropped off at the security gate an hour ago.
It was the raw box office receipts, international tracking data, and a few selected reviews Tom thought were funny.
Margot flipped to the third page, her eyes scanning the columns of numbers. She let out a soft, disbelieving breath, shaking her head.
"They're projecting it to cross half a billion globally by next weekend," Margot said aloud, her voice carrying easily over the quiet hum of the pool filter.
Florence was lying on the lounger directly next to her, slathered in sunscreen, reading a dog-eared script with a pair of dark sunglasses pushed up onto her head.
Florence didn't look up from the page. "Of course they are. I told you it was going to be massive."
"I knew it would be big," Margot clarified, turning her head to look at Florence. "I didn't know it was going to cause a cultural meltdown. My publicist called me this morning crying. Literally crying. She said my phone is ringing so much her assistant had to mute the lines. Every studio in town is trying to send me scripts."
Florence finally lowered the script, turning her head to look at Margot with a warm, knowing smile. "Welcome to the A-list, darling. You earned it. That kiss scene alone secured you a career for the next twenty years."
Margot felt a flush of heat hit her cheeks that had nothing to do with the sun. She remembered shooting that scene. She remembered the adrenaline, the smell of the greasepaint, the sheer, terrifying gravity of Daniel kissing her, and the instinctual, feral decision to pull him back down without caring about consequences.
A splash of water broke her train of thought.
Daniel broke the surface of the pool at the deep end, wiping the water from his eyes. He had been swimming laps for the last twenty minutes, burning off the lingering stress of the release week.
He rested his arms on the edge of the stone coping, his chest heaving slightly as he caught his breath. He looked up at them, his dark hair slicked back, water dripping down his shoulders. He looked entirely, infuriatingly unbothered by the fact that he was currently the most talked-about human being on the planet.
"Are you two working or relaxing?" Daniel asked, squinting slightly against the sun. "Because I banned phones out here for a reason."
"Margot is obsessing over your box office numbers," Florence snitched immediately, pointing a lazy finger at the stack of papers.
"I'm not obsessing," Margot defended herself, sitting up on the lounger and crossing her legs. She set the papers down on the small table between them. "I'm just trying to process the fact that my life is permanently, irreversibly different today than it was a week ago."
Daniel pushed up, lifting himself easily out of the pool. He grabbed a white towel off a nearby chair, drying his hair as he walked over to them.
He didn't grab a separate chair. He sat down directly on the edge of Margot's lounger, the damp fabric of his swim trunks pressing against her leg.
"It's loud out there right now," Daniel said, his voice calm and steady. He draped the towel over his shoulders and looked at her. "The press, the studios, the agents. Everyone wants a piece of the momentum. It gets overwhelming fast. It's slightly different every time, but it still feels the same."
Margot looked at him. She looked at Florence, who had set her script down completely and was watching them with a soft, affectionate expression.
Margot realized, with a sudden, profound clarity, that she didn't feel overwhelmed at all. If she were sitting in her apartment alone right now, fielding calls from frantic agents, she probably would be having a panic attack. But sitting here, inside the walls of the estate, anchored by the two of them, the noise of the outside world felt entirely muted. It couldn't reach her.
The dynamic they had built in the Caribbean had survived the trip back to reality.
"I'm okay," Margot said quietly, a genuine smile touching her lips. She reached out, her fingers lightly brushing a drop of water off Daniel's knee. "I feel pretty safe in here."
Daniel held her gaze, his dark eyes softening completely. He reached up, his thumb gently tracing the line of her cheekbone. The quiet intimacy of the moment stretched out, a private, closed-circuit victory lap away from the cameras and the screaming fans.
Margot took a breath, letting the calm settle in her chest. She looked at Daniel, her curiosity finally getting the better of her.
"So," Margot asked, tilting her head slightly. "You broke the box office with Star Wars. You just broke it again with an R-rated comic book movie. You proved you can act. You are a messiah in Hollywood right now."
Daniel picked up his towel, drying his arms. "And?"
"And," Margot continued, "what do you do next? Where do you even go from here?"
Daniel stopped moving. He looked at the stack of box office printouts on the table. He looked at Florence, who raised a single, curious eyebrow. Then he looked back at Margot.
He didn't give her a title. He didn't outline a studio slate or drop a massive Hollywood scoop.
Daniel just let a slow, deep, incredibly meaningful smile spread across his face. It was the smile of a man who was holding a winning lottery ticket and was in absolutely no rush to cash it in.
"I guess," Daniel said quietly, his eyes dark with a fun secret he wasn't ready to share, "you'll just have to wait and see."
----
A/N: Read ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/AmaanS