“Joker” was the first big winner of this year’s award season, but will it have the last laugh?

Certainly, the Joaquin Phoenix comic-book drama has been confounding industry expectations since its late-August debut at the Venice Film Festival, where it nabbed the Golden Lion, a top prize typically given to prestige films like “Roma” and “The Shape of Water.” Critical reaction was more mixed when “Joker” debuted in theaters this month, but box-office returns have been triumphant: The movie set an October opening-weekend record and is projected to make more than $300 million domestically.

That’s a staggering amount for a character study that lacks the action scenes or the sense of humor associated with most current comic-book movies, but “Joker” will soon marshal all of that money and pop-cultural capital in pursuit of an even more ambitious goal: Warner Bros. hopes the film will join “Black Panther” and “The Dark Knight” as the rare comic-book hits to also score big with Oscar.

To your Carpetbagger’s eyes, the movie’s best shot is in the best-actor race. The 44-year-old Phoenix has been nominated three times before (for “Gladiator,” “Walk the Line” and “The Master”) and is so frequently cited as the best actor of his generation that you’d be forgiven for thinking he’s already won at least one Oscar. If voters recognize that this is their chance to make it up to him, Phoenix could be a formidable front-runner.