If you think the idea of making Joker: Folie à Deux a musical is a bizarre choice, wait until you hear what Todd Phillips has in mind for the film’s opening. In addition to featuring musical elements, Phillips plans to open the highly-anticipated sequel with a Looney Tunes-inspired animated sequence.
Before you freak out, know that Phillips recruited top-tier talent for this bold choice. The legendary French artist and animator Sylvain Chomet helped Phillips create the animated sequence. If Chomet’s name sounds familiar, he’s the director of 2003’s The Triplets of Belleville and 2010’s The Illusionist, two positively brilliant and award-winning animated features.
In addition to Chomet’s animated sequence, Joker: Folie à Deux includes a “variety show sequence” with Joker and Harley presenting a Sonny and Cher-like dynamic. These elements are part of Todd Phillips’ radical approach to Joker: Folie à Deux, a sequel to 2019’s box office-breaking Joker. The “jukebox musical” is far from anything fans of the original anticipated for a follow-up to the chaos-embracing drama, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, a struggling comedian driven mad by society’s failures.
Joker: Folie à Deux will be “mostly a jukebox musical, including at least 15 reinterpretations of very well-known songs.” In hindsight, it would have been hard to imagine Joaquin Phoenix returning for more of the same, no matter how many dump trucks full of money they drove to his house.
In addition to Phoenix and Gaga, the film also stars Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Jacob Lofland, and Harry Lawtey. Zazie Beetz returns to reprise her role as Sophie Dumond from the first movie, a love interest for Arthur. Official plot details remain a mystery, but the trailer paints a pretty picture, and it’s been said that much of the sequel will occur within Arkham Asylum, where we left Arthur in the last film. It’s inside Arkham where Arthur meets Harleen Frances Quinzel. After escaping, Arthur and Harley resow the seeds of chaos in Gotham City, a corrupted metropolis continuously on the verge of collapse.
What do you think about Joker: Folie à Deux opening with a Sylvain Chomet-animated Looney Tunes-style sequence? Can this movie get any more questionable? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.