The Joker is back and this time with a friend.
Lady Gaga is in the first talks to star alongside Joaquin Phoenix in the sequel to Joker director Todd Phillips, the hit Warner Bros. Oscar winner in 2019 and $ 1 billion based on the DC character.
Phillips has been co-writing the script with co-writer Joker Scott Silver for a long time and has finally shown it to the studio. Last week, Phillips revealed on social media the title of the new project – Joker: Folie à deux – the title that refers to a medical term for an identical or similar mental disorder that affects two or more individuals, usually members of the same family. And while the same post on social media showed Phoenix reading the script, the actor’s involvement is not yet exactly a legal fact, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Warners has not yet closed a deal with the actor, with both parts in the background. .
Gaga enters.
The details of his character are kept secret, but Joker is known for his abusive relationship with Harley Quinn, his psychiatrist at the mental institution known as Arkham Asylum who falls in love with him and becomes his partner. fellow criminal. It’s unclear if Phillips and company are using other DC characters or making hits for themselves, as they did in many cases with their first film.
If an agreement is reached, Gaga will play Quinn. However, this new Quinn exists in a different DC universe than Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, which recently appeared in The Suicide Squad in 2021, as well as several other films.
But wait, that’s not all: the sources say that the sequel is also a musical.
When Warners first played Joker, it wasn’t safe. A dark and grumpy character piece, the project was a descent into madness between the taxi driver and the king of comedy set in a declining city in the late 1970s. The business outlook was considered nominal and only budgeted at $ 60 million.
By the time it was released in October 2019, Joker was mounting a wave of flattery from the fall film festivals, which helped propel the film towards a weekend premiere of record, with box office analysts changing their forecast every day. It ended its theatrical career as the fourth film with the highest grossing R rating of all time. He then received 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and won Best Actor (for Phoenix) and Best Score (for Hildur Guonadottir).
Phillips previously produced A Star Is Born, the 2018 remake starring Joker producer Bradley Cooper and Gaga.