Todd Phillips’ “Joker” was perfect as it was and didn’t need a sequel. Yesterday’s news that Phillips is working on one and that star Joaquin Phoenix is reading the screenplay has me dreading at the prospect of it all.
Why oh why must Phillips/Phoenix mess with the lightning-in-a-bottle moment of the 2019 Venice Golden Lion winner. It’s not even that I don’t believe a good movie can be made out of this one, but I like my great movies untouched, their legacies unburdened by being messed around with.
The sequel is said to be called “Joker: Folie à Deux,” (nifty title) and Phillips posted a shot of the script on his instagram. Suffice to say, the internet lost its mind. In the same post, Phillips included a shot of star Joaquin Phoenix reading the screenplay.
The French term “folie a deux” is a psychological term derived from when two people engage in a shared delusive reality together. This might imply that Joker’s girlfriend, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), would be entering the fray here.
Again, they better have a great story to tell here because “Joker” definitely does not need a sequel, and I mean that as the highest compliment. The 2019 film perfectly depicted the zeitgeist via Phoenix’s deranged urban saviour.
The R-rated “Joker” grossed over a billion dollars worldwide and earned 12 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and a Best Actor statuette for Phoenix.