Joker: Folie à Deux: Reveals Itself in its First Trailer, Release Date and Stills
After a long wait of five years, Todd Phillips and Warner Bros. released the first trailer for the sequel to Joker (2019). Titled Joker: Folie à Deux (Joker 2), the film brings back Joaquin Phoenix as Gotham City’s villain and introduces Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, Arthur Fleck’s faithful companion in the comics. In recent months, images of the filming and, later, official photographs of the film were released to create expectations around the long-awaited continuation. But, the most extensive look did not come until the night of this Tuesday, April 9.
The film shows the meeting between the two lovers, Joker and Harley Quinn, within the context of Arkham Asylum, with the protagonist herself inviting Arthur to escape together. In the trailer, we seem to see that the external environment has now been contaminated by the presence of the Joker, who has become a cult figure. In the cast of the film, in addition to the two crazy lovers, Joker and Quinn, there is Zazie Beetz who takes up the role of Arthur’s neighbor, Sophie. Sharon Washington and Leigh Gill (two of Arthur’s work colleagues) and with them are Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Harry Lawtey, Jacob Lofland, Steve Coogan, and Ken Leung.
Joker: Folie à Deux Will Have Violence and Sexual Scenes?
The sequel was given an R Rating by the Motion Picture Association. As reported last Wednesday, the film contains “some strong violence, explicit language, some sexuality, and brief full nudity”, maintaining the tone of its predecessor, which also received an R rating for “strong bloody violence, disturbing behavior, language, and brief sexual images”. Joker: Folie à Deux will be mostly a jukebox musical, that is, it will have at least 15 reinterpretations of well-known songs incorporated. “That’s Entertainment” from the 1953 musical The Band Wagon, famously associated with Judy Garland, is one of the confirmed songs. Additionally, there might be one or two original songs on the soundtrack.
After winning the Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Film Festival, the acclaimed first film grossed more than $1 billion worldwide and led the 2020 Oscar nominations with 11 nominations, where Joaquin Phoenix took the award for Best Actor. For her part, Lady Gaga, who has successfully transitioned to Hollywood with praised productions such as A Star Is Born and House of Gucci, was nominated for best actress at the 2019 Oscars, where “Shallow,” from A Star Is Born, won. the Best Original Song category.
What is Joker 2 About?
Joker: Folie à Deux will be a musical that follows the twisted love story between Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck/Joker and Gaga’s Harley Quinn, with much of the film taking place inside Arkham Asylum. The film will also star Zazie Beetz, Brendon Gleeson, Catherine Keener, and Jacob Lofland. It makes me very happy because I’ve said from the beginning that all I want is for Harley Quinn to be one of those characters, like Macbeth or Batman, who always goes from one great actor to another,” Margot Robbie said about it of Lady Gaga taking on the role.
“It’s a bit like someone doing their Batman, or someone doing their Macbeth. It seems to me that in a few cases, they are female characters – Queen Elizabeth I, but also others, that I had the opportunity to play, and I was honored to do so. I said to myself: ‘Wow! Cate Blanchett did Queen Elizabeth I, now it’s my turn.’ It’s an honor to have built a foundation solid enough for Harley to be one of those characters that other actors can try to play. And I believe she will do something incredible”.
What to Expect from Joker 2?
Director Todd Phillips doubles the bet, or rather, quadruples it if we take into account his budget. If his 2019 film focused on Joker, Batman’s most iconic archenemy, was already as unusual as it was risky, taking into account the margins and guidelines in which mainstream productions of superhero universes operate, whether from Marvel or DC, the sequel five years later with Joker: Folie à Deux, is going to be even more daring. Nothing less than a musical, a genre that does not currently enjoy the favor of the public to flock to the cinemas.
And if the budget that Warner Bros. then granted to Phillips was a cautious 55 million dollars, far from the enormous figures usually handled in productions of this type, the blockbuster Joker with 1,078 million dollars collected in the major theaters, in addition to winning 11 Oscar nominations, including those for best film, of which Gotham won two (best actor for Joaquin Phoenix and best music for the Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir), it has encouraged the Warner studios to now invest a whopping 200 million plus promotional expenses. As for its director, who knew? From having begun to make a name for himself with failed comedies, such as Starsky & Hutch: The Movie in 2004 or School of Dummies in 2006, to making well-deserved fame in the same genre with The Hangover (and sequels) to diving headfirst into the universe of DC antiheroes and, most strikingly, doing it as if it were auteur cinema, and not at odds with the commercial. Let’s go with this next sequel that promises to be truly crazy, even much more than the original film.
The Soundtrack and Songs of Joker 2?
Hildur Guðnadóttir also repeats in the music section for the film, although the strong point this time will be, as befits a musical, the songs. For more details, it will be what is called a “jukebox musical” (in the style of, for example, Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge ) because there will be at least up to 15 reinterpretations of very well-known songs. At the moment, only one of them has been revealed, and it is very emblematic, of That’s Entertainment from the film Broadway Melodies 1955. Furthermore, it seems that two classic musical masterpieces such as Singin’ in the Rain and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg will also be great references.
Joker 2 Release Date
After being presented at different festivals, such as Venice, Toronto, or San Sebastián, Joker arrived in a large number of cinemas in 2019, both in Spain and the United States, on October 4. Joker 2 is scheduled to premiere on Thursday, October 3. Meanwhile, in the United States and other regions, it will be seen starting on Friday the 4th.
