Todd Phillips returns to the crime scene in the broadest and most radical sense. Joker: Folie à Deux is not only the most anticipated sequel of recent times, it is also the most bewildering, controversial, and therefore, the most worthy of a character as bewildering and controversial as the chaotic clown himself. The first installment in 2019 deserved the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, crowned its protagonist Joaquin Phoenix with an Oscar and reached the status of an icon for better or for worse.
The second installment, which also had its world premiere in the Serenissima, now arrives in theaters with Lady Gaga in the role of Harley Quinn, in a musical format and ready to refute every misunderstanding that its predecessor may have caused. Its director distances himself from those who turned his Joker into a reactionary flag and claims for his character and his film the virtue of reconciliation and even hope.
For Todd Phillips, "it's very overwhelming everything that is happening because you know that the expectations for this film are very high. The fun part of the first one is that we didn't care about anyone. People thought: 'Another superhero movie, who cares?'. Now all eyes are on us. Even before starting to write the script with Scott Silver. Also, we made it deliberately complicated for ourselves. A sequel is expected to repeat what people liked about the original. There are rules and you just stick to them. Well, we decided to do something completely different. Joaquin Phoenix would never make a movie for the fans. We wanted something that scared in the same way the first one did."