Joker is a great movie AND a big success, which means we’re probably getting a sequel. But the filmmakers should think twice between trying to catch lighting in a bottle again.
Last year, Joker became one of the most successful superhero movies of all time, earning over $1 billion at the box office and netting star Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar for Best Actor. After that, it was all but inevitable that we’d get a sequel. Warner Bros. is reportedly willing to pay star Phoenix $50 million to star in not just one, but two further movies featuring the Clown Prince of Crime.
Both Phoenix and director Todd Phillips danced around the idea of a sequel in interviews in 2019. Phillips told Total Film Magazine that a second movie depended on Phoenix, general interest, and if Warner Bros. was willing to back the project. The second and third items are definitely taken care of.
Phoenix, who usually doesn’t sign up for sequels, has now changed his tune. In an interview with film critic Peter Travers, the Academy Award winner expressed his desire to return to the role:
"I wouldn’t have thought of this as my dream role. But now, honestly, I can’t stop thinking about it. I talked to Todd a lot about what else we might be able to do, in general, just working together, but also specifically, if there’s something else we can do with Joker that might be interesting.So, it ended up being a dream role. It’s nothing that I really wanted to do prior to working on this movie."
But is a sequel really the best idea? What made Joker so special was that it was a fantastic stand-alone story that didn’t rely on watching several movies beforehand to understand everything or searching for easter eggs and cameos for hints on future installments.
Don’t get me wrong, I love both the MCU and the DCEU, but Joker was a unique and refreshing comic book movie experience. Joker should be held up as an example of how DC, and even Marvel, could experiment with their cinematic universe formula and focus on smaller, separate stories.
Besides, what would a sequel even look like? There are many places it could go. We last left Joker, aka Arthur Fleck, holed up in a mental institution, so perhaps they could bring in Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a psychiatrist whom the Joker corrupts into becoming the supervillain Harley Quinn. Maybe they could have Joker go up against a Gotham crime boss, or show us Bruce Wayne’s first year as the Caped Crusader from the villain’s perspective, or give us another purely original story. Whatever direction it took, it would be difficult for Phillips to recapture that lightning in a bottle a second time.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want him to pull it off, though. I want nothing more than for Phillips and Phoenix to make a satisfying sequel if that’s what they want. I just think his efforts and talents would be better used for a different project, particularly something else within the “DC Black” label, which takes a darker and grittier approach to classic DC stories and characters. A Deathstroke or Lex Luthor movie with the same sinister and visceral mood as the Joker would be interesting. Or maybe an Elseworlds story like Superman: Red Son, which asks the question, “What if the last son of Krypton landed in Soviet Russia instead of rural Kansas?”
If Phillips and Phoenix team up to bring their vision of the Joker to the big screen again, I’ll be one of the first in line on opening day. But I’d rather they expand their horizons.
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