Joaquin Phoenix will once again star as the Joker in a newly-announced sequel to 2019's Joker. They've even announced Joker 2's title!
After the tremendous success of Joker back in 2019, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the film's titular antihero, it seemed uncertain whether he would return to the role. Now, in a surprise Instagram announcement from the film's director, Todd Phillips, we know that Joker is returning to cinemas in what looks like a sequel. We even got the film's name!
There is very little known about Joker 2. In fact, until only a few hours ago, we weren't sure that the movie would even be made. After all, DC are hammering out a lot of DCU films at the moment, and it doesn't look like Joaquin Phoenix's Joker will be the one featured in any of the upcoming "The Batman" sequels. This is surely a good thing, though, giving Todd Phillips and Scott Silver a great deal more freedom.
You may have noticed that I just listed two different names. Todd Phillips directed Joker back in 2019, where he was joined by Scott Silver as co-writer. It looks like both are returning for the follow-up, after Warner Bros. reportedly signed Phillips to a sequel in May last year. Until late last year, though, Joaquin Phoenix was seemingly in the dark to a sequel. If they're doing one, though, he's surely on-board.
Joker 2 Title Revealed
At midnight CEST, Todd Phillips took to Instagram to post a scan of a script cover for Joker 2, titled Joker: Folie à Deux. All that was revealed on the cover was the film's name and the authorship of its script (Scott Silver & Todd Phillips). At the bottom of the script was a date, May 18, 2022, which probably indicates when this draft was finalized.
The title, Folie à Deux refers to a psychological disorder defined by Vasudha Sharma and Harshit Arora as "a rare condition wherein a similar delusion system is shared by two or more patients in a close and often long-term relationship". It is also known as "Shared Delusion Disorder". What could this mean for Joker: Folie à Deux, though?
Well, we already know that Joker had a psychologically dependent relationship with his mother, which ended violently in the first film. Harley Quinn is known to be his psychologist, as was also shown in the first film, and he also has a bizarrely inter-dependent relationship with Batman. Thus, there is a lot of material that could come from a concept like this.
That's really all that we can say, though. Joker was ground-breaking back in 2019, taking a character that we all loved but had been tainted by the tragic loss of Heath Ledger a decade earlier, and breathing new life into him. It's fantastic to see Joaquin Phoenix return to the character for a sequel, and it is also good that they are not shoehorning this in the DCU. All good news here, folks, and we'll keep you updated!