The musical sequel of the clownish and brutal underdog’s character study is likely to give us intriguing ideas for ways the genre can be propelled forward
What a strange beast Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux, the debut trailer for which was released this week, looks to be. Here we have a comic book movie that is really nothing of the sort, a sequel (and a musical one no less!) to the Oscar-winning character study of Joaquin Phoenix’s clownish and ultimately brutal underdog. This is a man who may or may not have some connection to the Batman comics that gave birth to him, but certainly seems to have a far greater link to the grimy crime films of Martin Scorsese in the late 70s and early 80s.
It is as if, 100 years after the invention of the wheel, somebody inexplicably decided to turn it into a Frisbee instead. And there is, to this date, no obvious answer as to why the original film worked at all, other than – inexplicably – it made more than $1bn at the global box office and therefore must have found its audience.
Imagine the pitch room at Warner Bros when this one first began morphing into shape like one of the BFG’s bad dreams. What’s that you say, Todd, it has nothing to do with the wider DC extended universe, features not a single obvious discernible superhero and no real action sequences? Well, bring it on!
