With some calling the film a "cinematic achievement on a high level," it's easy to have lofty expectations for Todd Phillips' JOKER, and, like most of you, I'm rather curious to see how audiences will react to the film. We've been getting little bits and pieces from the upcoming film over the past few months, and here's one more: the cover of the next issue of Il Venerdì di Repubblica finds Joaquin Phoenix staring into your very soul.

JOKER director Todd Phillips has previously teased that the film will be unique in that they didn't pull anything from the comic-books.

We didn’t follow anything from the comic-books, which people are gonna be mad about. We just wrote our own version of where a guy like Joker might come from. That’s what was interesting to me. We’re not even doing Joker, but the story of becoming Joker. It’s about this man.

Brian Tyree Henry (CHILD'S PLAY) has also previously given his two-cents on just what separates this new Joker story from its predecessors. "I think it’s going to be very different because it really goes into just the origin story. Villains are never born that way, they’re made. There’s something that happens in their lives that they give up their faith in humanity; they see the flaws of humanity and mankind and feel like they must correct it," Henry teased. "And what happens with Joker is you start to see how he really was a happy person. He really was trying to find this…hope in humanity until it broke him down and he just had to give up and reshape it." JOKER will hit theaters on October 4, 2019.