Joker 2 Production Has Wrapped And Lady Gaga's Harley Quinn Looks Incredible
"Joker 2" (or "Joker: Folie à Deux" if you're feeling fancy) has officially wrapped filming, according to an Instagram post by director Todd Phillips. The film will bring the Phillips universe Joker, played by Joaquin Phoenix, together with Harley Quinn, played by Lady Gaga, and is reportedly a musical. What that will look like in this gritty, "Taxi Driver"-inspired world is anybody's guess, but the hard part is done now. The filming has been completed and, as Phillips put it on Instagram, the director will now "crawl into a cave (edit room) and put it all together."
The DC landscape is a little different now. New chairmen and Chief Executive Officers of DC Studios James Gunn and Peter Safran are busy consolidating the DC cinematic universe into a whole new shape, but there is apparently still room for some of these alternate timeline versions of DC's famous characters. They're calling these side-stories "Elseworlds," and while that includes Phillips' film and Matt Reeves' proposed sequel to "The Batman," the "Joker 2" won't exist in the new DC Universe.
Does this mean there's room for more Joaquin Phoenix Joker movies down the line? I suppose a lot of that might depend on if the sequel hits the same billion-dollar box office target as the first film. It'll be hard to pull the plug on a franchise series that prints that kind of money out each time.
Then there's the Lady Gaga factor. When Phillips announced the wrap on production he also shared a new image of the pop star and Oscar winner as Harley Quinn (and a new shot of Phoenix's Joker). Eagle-eyed movie fans might have seen some paparazzi images from filming on the streets of New York, but this is the first official picture of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn.
You can't read my joker face
Gaga does seem to fit pretty comfortably into the world of "Joker," and I'm sure her version of the character will compliment her own Mistah J. Margot Robbie was pitch perfect in the same role in "The Suicide Squad" flicks, but for these "Elseworlds" films, it's pretty clear that Gunn and Safran want to keep a stringent barrier between the new DCU and the stand-alone movies.
We don't even know if Robbie will be back as Harley anytime down the line, but we can be reasonably sure that this new era of DC is wanting to streamline their roster and cut down on the confusion that can come with having multiple versions of the same character played by different actors all going at the same time without a very clear distinction.
As sloppy as the MCU can be, they were very smart in building their cinematic universe one building block at a time. By the time everything got super crazy, we were already all-in on the universe and knew who everyone was and where they stood, even if they did a few actor switcheroos (lookin' at you Terrence Howard and Edward Norton!) Judging by Gunn's state of the DC union presentation, that's something they'll ultimately emulate.
"Joker: Folie à Deux" isn't set to hit screens until October 4, 2024.