Todd Phillips has hinted ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ will be the final film in the franchise.
Todd Phillips has hinted Joker: Folie à Deux will be the final movie in the franchise (c) Art Streiber for Variety
The 53-year-old director and Joaquin Phoenix, 49 - who plays the maniacal criminal - were happy to return for the upcoming sequel but the filmmaker has revealed there likely won’t be any more follow-up flicks because the team feel like they’ve explored all that the world has to offer.
He told Variety: "It was fun to play in this sort of sandbox for two movies, but I think we’ve said what we wanted to say in this world."
Phillips added the prospect of making a sequel "scared the s***" out of him, because he felt it would be hard to surpass the original film from 2019 - which grossed over $1 billion at the box office and earned Phoenix the Academy Award for Best Actor.
He explained: "The question became, ‘how can we top ourselves?’ And you can only do that if you do something dangerous.
"But there were days on set where you’d look around and think, ‘Holy f****** s***! What did we do?’"
The upcoming movie - which follows the criminally insane Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) as he falls madly in love with Lady Gaga’s Arkham Asylum music therapist Lee, a version of DC Comics’ Harley Quinn - differs from the original as it is a musical instead of a dark psychological thriller.
The 38-year-old singer and actress said the director had taken a "very big swing" to give the sequel such a major tonal and conceptual shift from the first film.
She explained: "Todd took a very big swing with this whole concept and with the script, giving the sequel to ‘Joker’ this audacity and complexity.
"There’s music, there’s dance, it’s a drama, it’s also a courtroom drama, it’s a comedy, it’s happy, it’s sad. It’s a testament to [Phillips] as a director, that he would rather be creative than just tell a traditional story of love."
Lady Gaga will be taking on a role that was previously played by Margot Robbie in the 'Suicide Squad' movies and Todd explained he wanted the new take on the character to feel distinctive and appropriate for the gritty world that was first seen in the original picture.
He said: "The high voice, that accent, the gum chewing and all that sort of sassy stuff that’s in the comics, we stripped that away. We wanted her to fit into this world of Gotham that we created from the first movie."
Variety's full interview with Todd Phillips can be read at https://variety.com/2024/film/features/todd-phillips-joker-2-movie-interview-1236111122/
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