Put Your Happy Face On, ‘JOKER 2’ Officially in Development

It should come as a surprise to no one that Joker, a film which has broken the record for biggest R-rated film ever, and has smashed plenty of other records along the way, has officially been greenlit for a sequel. The Joaquin Phoenix-starring supervillain origin story enjoyed a celebrated festival run, winning the coveted Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. and further praise along its path to wider cineplexes. The reputation of the Todd Phillips’ film began to proceed itself, with Joker becoming a central topic of cultural conversation and somewhat critically divisive, even before its release. Ultimately, Joker became an unmitigated mega-hit for DC and Warner Brothers (already well on its way to a crisp $900 million total tally), with fan fervor matching its box office ferocity.

We Got This Covered reports that Joker 2 will follow Arthur Fleck’s rise as the Crown Prince of Crime and may feature not one but two other iconic Batman villains: Two-Face and the Penguin. This news may come as concerning since Joker thrived precisely because of its arms-length from extended Bat-lore, not in spite of it. Weaving two other villains into the mix could end up muddying the waters but, since this is all basically a trumped-up rumor at this point anyway, it’s hard to speculate further.

Personally, I love the idea of continuing the journey of Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck and I was a big fan of the film. Per my review of Joker:

 “Joaquin Phoenix embodies the man more than the mantle, tackling the role with the kind of career-defining gusto that evidently is required to play the Clown Prince of Crime (thankfully, the days of Joker as a Soundcloud rapper with face tats and a grill are long behind us.) A failure in most rights, Arthur Fleck is a clown for hire, posted up in children hospital wards, or assigned to sign-spinning duty outside jewelry stores going out of business. He aspires to fulfill his dream of stand-up comedy, encouraged by his mother’s (Frances Conroy in the perfect Frances Conroy role) belief that he was put on this Earth to make people smile. That proves to be a bit of a stretch as Arthur is shown to be a severely unsettling figure to be around, particularly because he suffers from pseudobulbar affect, also called emotional incontinence, which manifests itself in outbreaks of inappropriate laughter in times of high stress or emotion. This shows itself in unfortunate times, Arthur often weeping whilst he cackles like a madman. This all makes for an all-time depiction of the “Joker laugh” that has Phoenix braying like a hyena while in very obvious emotional distress, a groundswell of the undeniable greatness that is this performance.”

With Screen Rant reporting that Joker is set to make just as much profit as Endgame (which you might recall as the current all-time box office champ) it’s a no brainer that WB is doing anything possible to get Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips back in a room making a mad clown movie. The question now becomes: can they catch lightning in a bottle twice?

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