They’re swinging for the fences with the new Joker movie, this one starring Joaquin Phoenix as the title character.

Robert De Niro, who surprisingly has never done a comic book movie, is in negotiations to join Phoenix in Warner Bros.’s upcoming Joker stand-alone movie from The Hangover helmer Todd Phillips, says THR.

Phoenix is portraying the DC Comics villain in a movie that is more moderately-budgeted and darker than the studio’s other DC-based movies, known as the DC Cinematic Universe.

If a deal makes, De Niro would play a talk show host who is somehow instrumental in the Joker’s origin.

Phillips is direct from a script he’s co-written with Scott Silver (8 Mile, The Fighter). While plot details are largely unknown, the stand-alone is supposed to be set in Gotham City in the early 1980s.

Zazie Beetz, who co-starred in Deadpool 2 as the scene-stealing Domino, is also in talks for a role.

The project is due to begin lensing September in New York.