Warning: This article contains spoilers forJoker: Folie à Deux
Joker: Folie a Deuxhas rubbed many people up the wrong way by completely undoing the story of 2019’sJokerwith its revelation that Joaquin’s Arthur Fleck is not “The” Joker. However, directorTodd Phillipsdoesn’t quite understand how this can be news to fans, as he believes it was always there in the original movie, particularly inone scene that people seem to have completely forgotten in their rush to trash the newly released sequel.
While speaking toIGNabout the movie, Phillips reiterated that the subject of his Joker movies was never going to be the Clown Prince of Gotham. As well as believing thathe was only going to make one movieand did not really want to think of what the future of Arthur Fleck may hold beyond the end of 2019’s Oscar-winning hit. However, he pointed out that for anyone who sawJoker,the scene in which the character met a young Bruce Wayne clearly showed that he wasnot the same Joker that Batman would fight years later. He said:
“One of the things that people never understood about the first movie was, ‘I don’t get it. He visits Bruce Wayne and he’s 30 years older than Bruce Wayne. What kind of geriatric Joker is going to fight in the future?'”
Phillips went on to share how even the script of the first movie set up the twist that shocked many audiences this past weekend. He continued:
“I don’t know if you’ve ever saw the script of the first movie. The first film is called Joker. It’s not called ‘The Joker,’ it’s called Joker. And the first film under the script always said ‘An origin story.’ Never said THE origin story.”
So, Who Was the Real Joker in Todd Phillips’ Movies?
It really doesn’t matter. At least that is what Phillips suggests. While there are many who have been unimpressed to discover that Arthur Fleck, the man they have watched become Joker through two movies, isnot the character they thought he was, Phillips has continued to leave the identity of the actual Joker in his universe an ambiguous mystery.
Continuing to elaborate on the way Arthur Fleck could not be the person many accepted him to be during the first movie, Phillips said that it was simply not possible for that character to have what it took to be the criminal genius that is Batman’s greatest adversary. He added:
“The big thing with Arthur, Joaquin’s version of Joker, our version of Joker, he’s not a criminal mastermind. It’s one of the things we’ve always said about him, even in the first movie. And if we never made a sequel, it was just like, think what you want about what this guy turns into, but it’s never any version of the Joker that we all grew up on. You know what I mean? That’s just not who Arthur is.”
Batgirl Fans Are Feeling Pretty Vindicated by Joker’s Box-Office Flop
DC fans are pointing to the box-office failure of Folie à Deux as the latest in a long line of bad decisions at Warner Bros.
Joker: Folie à Deuxends with Arthur being murdered by another inmate, who thenslashes his own face in a way reminiscent of Heath Ledger’s JokerinThe Dark Knight, but even this new Joker is most likely not “The” Joker. After the brutal box office collapse of the movie, as well as some less than complimentary reviews from both audiences and critics,we will clearly never see the real Joker in that particular Elseworlds corner of the DC universe, but for those who didn’t see it coming…it looks like the joke is on you.
Joker: Folie a Deux
Joker: Folie à Deux is the sequel to Todd Phillips’ critically acclaimed comic book thriller Joker. Reprising his Academy Award-winning performance as the failed comedian Arthur Fleck, Joaquin Phoenix revisits the iconic DC character alongside Lady Gaga, who makes her debut as Joker’s lover Harley Quinn in this standalone continuity of the DC Universe.
