Joker 2: French director to star in DC film alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga

In two weeks, Todd Phillips will reclaim his title as 2019 Golden Lion winner thanks to Joker, with the director returning to competition at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday, September 4. Its sequel is titled Folie à Deux (subtitled in French), and features Lady Gaga playing Harley Quinn opposite Joaquin Phoenix.

The R-rated film’s biggest success in the United States (restricted to under 17s) until Deadpool & Wolverine dethroned it a few days ago, the first opus earned $1.079 billion worldwide. Therefore, its sequel is inevitably highly anticipated and Todd Phillips has made some announcements. DiversityIt’s more than a month until it hits theaters.

Behind the camera, the director first confirms what many suspected (including us) about the mechanics of the musical sequences that the trailer suggests: they only exist in the minds of the two main characters. hence the title, “Folie a Deux”A psychiatric term describing cases of common psychosis.

“Most of the music in the film is just dialogue”Todd Phillips clarifies. “Arthur just can’t find the words to say what he wants to say and sings instead. I don’t want people to think that Where do we come from?Where a woman starts singing in a bodega, then the number moves to the street and the policemen dance. I say that disrespectfully because I love where we come from.”

Where does the music come from when no one but the characters can hear it?

“We asked ourselves, how believable would it be if two people started singing in the middle of a conversation?”Continues Lady Gaga, who, like her partner, performed her songs live on the set. “Where does the music come from when no one but the characters can hear it? Neither Arthur nor Lee are professional singers, so it appears they weren’t.”

“It was important to me that we didn’t sing the songs the way people usually do in musicals.”Finally adds Joaquin Phoenix. “We didn’t want excruciating, but honest vibrato and perfect notes.”

French director’s animated series

But that won’t be the only break in tone, as the director tells us the feature will open with an animated sequence inspired by Looney Tunes cartoons, created by… France’s Sylvain Chaumet, creator of Triplettes de Belleville and The Illusionist. We don’t yet know what those few minutes will contain (recap of the first movie?), but the return to live footage promises to be brutal next.

Because it would be the issue of a prison riot and the trial of Arthur Flack, who faces the death penalty in this story, which takes place two years after the events of the first Joker. And where, Todd Phillips promises, Harley Quinn is very different from her previous incarnations, without “The high-pitched voice, the accent, the rubber and the eccentric elements that are in the comics fit the Gotham world that we created in the first film.”

See you from October 2 in French cinemas to find Joaquin Phoenix in the role of Arthur Flack and discover Lady Gaga in the role of Harley Quinn. It is known that this will be the only opportunity to see this version of the character, because Todd Phillips claims that he does not want Joker 3. But he also said that he will rule out the possibility of a sequel in 2019, and it will be released in a little more than a month.