With Script Written & Joaquin Phoenix Nearing Deal, Joker Sequel Looks Like a Go

Director Todd Phillips has finished the script to his proposed Joker sequel, Joker: Folie à deux, and Joaquin Phoenix is nearing a deal to return as Arthur Fleck.

Deadline:

This has been building since before Toby Emmerich exited and Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy took the reins at Warner Bros. Joaquin Phoenix hasn’t quite signed a deal to reprise his role as the disturbed murderous anarchist Arthur Fleck in a sequel to the billion dollar grossing Joker,. but the film is a go. Director Todd Phillips revealed on Instagram that there’s a Joker sequel script he just wrote with Scott Silver and that Joaquin Phoenix, who won an Oscar for playing the title role, is reading it. That isn’t quite true; Phoenix read it awhile ago, and it has come down to making a rich deal for him to star in the genre-jumping sequel.

The screenplay is titled Joker: Folie à deux, the French reference being a medical term pertaining to a mental disorder which affects two or more people.

The first Joker was the highest grossing R-rated movie of all-time with $1.07 billion worldwide, and notched 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and a second Oscar win for Hildur Guðnadóttir’s original score.

The Batman is the second highest grossing movie of the year to date with $770.3M and a sequel was announced by Emmerich and Reeves at CinemaCon back in April.

Also upcoming on the DC side for Warners is the Dwayne Johnson-starrer Black Adam in October, Shazam! Fury of the Gods at Christmas, and next year’s The Flash (though Ezra Miller’s odd behavior leaves a question mark) and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

 

 

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