Deadline: Joaquin Phoenix’s Villain & Lady Gaga’s Harley Are Madly, Deeply In Love

Everyone was predicting it would be woke and hated musicals. Turns out it's a love story muscial and nobody was triggered!

https://deadline.com/video/joker-2-trailer-folie-a-deux/

The trailer is about mad people — in love. Phoenix is seen taking the stage and performing in a nightclub. The footage is set against the ditty, “What the World Needs Now (Is Love Sweet Love).” Gaga and Phoenix run through the Manhattan streets and dream of dancing clad in elegance against a moonlit sky. The trailer ends with Harley visiting Joker in jail — or Arkham Asylum.

“When we were making the first movie Joaquin and I always talked about making a sequel really because we were having a great time but we were never really serious,” he added.

“Then when Joker became a huge success we talked about it during the pandemic and decided to do it and we had a blast doing it.”

He continued about the sequel: “We cast Gaga because she’s magic. I was a producer on A Star is Born and that was where I was like she has magic in her.”

“I’ve never talked about it as a musical, but it’s a movie where music is an essential element.”

“The first ways I described Arthur were as weird and aloof and distant, but he has music in him, he has a grace to him. That informed him a lot in the first film. It didn’t seem like that big of a step what we did here.”

But as you can see in the trailer, it’s a seismic notch up. Who knew that was even possible given how much Joker played like a commentary on society, ala Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, more than a DC movie.