A week on from the announcement that Warner Bros. Pictures will be pursuing a non-DCEU origin movie about Batman’s arch-nemesis The Joker, the first rumors about the film’s content have emerged.

As we know it will be set in early 1980s Gotham City and will adopt a gritty and hard-boiled crime film tone. Now, MMA fighter-turned-actor Brendan Schaub, who shares an agent with the film’s director Todd Phillips, popped up on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast (via Batman News) and discussed what he’s heard:

“My boy Todd Feldman put this together with Todd Phillips. It’s dark. It’s like a dark Joker. As a kid, he had a permanent smile and everyone made fun of him. It’s like on the streets of Brooklyn. It’s super dark and real.”

The film is expected to serve as the launch title of a new brand of DC standalone/anthology films which will be auteur-driven and can explore unusual story angles.