Joker: Folie à Deux[a] is a 2024 American jukebox musical[9] psychological thriller film directed by Todd Phillips from a screenplay he co-wrote with Scott Silver. Loosely based on DC Comics characters, it is the sequel to Joker (2019).
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Joaquin Phoenix reprises his role as the Joker, with Lady Gaga as his love interest, Lee Quinzel. Zazie Beetz and Leigh Gill also reprise their roles, while Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Steve Coogan and Harry Lawtey join the cast. It is produced by Warner Bros. Pictures in association with Joint Effort and was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Joker was conceived as a standalone film, although Warner Bros. intended the film to launch a DC Black film series. Phillips, director of Joker, expressed interest in making a sequel, which was announced in June 2022, with Gaga and Beetz joining later that year. Principal photography took place in New York City, Los Angeles, and Belleville, New Jersey, from December 2022 to April 2023.
Joker: Folie à Deux premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2024,[10] and was released in the United States on October 4. The film was a critical and commercial failure, having grossed $201 million on a $190–200 million budget.
Plot
In an animated sequence, the Joker is impersonated by his shadow, who takes his place to perform his singing number for a TV show, and then abandons him on stage, before three police officers arrive and attack him.
Arthur Fleck is in custody at Arkham State Hospital awaiting trial for the crimes he committed two years prior.[b] His lawyer, Maryanne Stewart, plans to argue that Arthur suffers from dissociative identity disorder and that his Joker personality is responsible for the crimes. At a music therapy session, Arthur meets Harleen “Lee” Quinzel. Lee reveals to Arthur that she grew up in the same neighborhood he did, had an abusive father who died in a car crash, and was imprisoned after burning down her parent’s apartment building. Lee also expresses her admiration for the Joker’s crimes and personality.
During a film screening, Lee starts a fire. She and Arthur are caught trying to escape, and Arthur is placed in solitary confinement. Lee visits him to say she is being released to avoid his influence but promises to attend his trial, and they have sex. During an interview with television personality Paddy Meyers, Arthur sings to Lee through the TV screen, deepening her love for him.
Casting
Days after the film’s official announcement, it was announced Gaga was in talks to portray Harley Quinn and that the film would be a musical.[52][53] Gaga accepted the role due to seeing the part as a new challenge that was something she had not done previously after her film appearances in A Star is Born (2018) and House of Gucci (2021)
as well as she recognizing having two extremes in identity and duality as her character applied to her two due to complicatedly having like a second life in her celebrity singer persona.[15] Gaga would confirm her casting later that summer.[54] She received $12 million for her involvement.[3] In August 2022,
it was reported Zazie Beetz was in negotiations to reprise her role as Sophie Dumond in the film.[55] Beetz was confirmed to be reprising her role the following month, alongside the cast additions of Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener and Jacob Lofland.[18][56][25] Gleeson joined the project out of his admiration for both Phoenix’s “indelible” performance in the first film and Gaga, but admitted to being “kinda intimidated”
by what he had to do for his role.[57] In October, Harry Lawtey joined the cast in what Deadline Hollywood reported as a “big role”,[21] later revealed to be that of Harvey Dent by the film’s official trailer.
[19] Lawtey taped an audition for Phillips, consisting of a recorded self-talk between himself and a friend of his, just as HBO renewed Industry (2020–present) in Fall 2022, not expecting to get the role, for which he had no information. A couple of weeks later, Lawtey had a video call with Phillips, during which he offered him the role of Dent straight away even though his team assumed it was going to be a note session for a second read.[20]