Posted in: Joker, Movies, Warner Bros | Tagged: joker 2, Joker: Folie à Deux, todd phillips

Joker: Folie À Deux: All The Ways Lee Quinzel Is Not Harley Quinn

Joker: Folie À Deux director Todd Phillips emphasizes the differences between Harley Quinn and Lady Gaga's Lee Quinzel.

The more we learn about Joker: Folie À Deux, the more it feels like a film that was an original concept that someone slapped a bunch of DC comics lore paint on and called it good. It worked out all right for the first film, and there is a chance it would work out again for this one, but it has become very apparent that we are moving beyond the "revisionism" of these characters to just creating a new one entirely. That's fine, but it puts the movie in a very precarious place. You and your actors will constantly discuss the differences between the source material, other adaptations, and your version because it differs from anything we've seen before. It forces you to defend your creative choices almost before anyone has even seen the film. We already knew that Arthur Fleck wouldn't be taking on any more characteristics of his comic book counterpart, and according to Todd Phillips in a new interview with Variety, don't expect to see anything resembling Harley Quinn in Lady Gaga's Lee Quinzel.

"The high voice, that accent, the gum-chewing, and all that sort of sassy stuff that's in the comics, we stripped that away," Phillips says. "We wanted her to fit into this world of Gotham that we created from the first movie."

At the end of July, Empire released an interview with Phillips, which also emphasized that Lee and Harley are two very different characters, saying, "While there are some things that people would find familiar in her, it's really Gaga's own interpretation, and Scott [Silver, co-writer] and I's interpretation. She became the way how [Charles] Manson had girls that idolised him. The way that sometimes these [imprisoned murderers] have people that look up to them. There are things about Harley in the movie that were taken from the comic books, but we took it and moulded it to the way we wanted it to be." Joker: Folie À Deux will make its premiere at the Venice Film Festival later this month, and we all know how festival reactions will be, so expect everyone to either call this the greatest movie to ever movie or a pox upon filmmaking as we know it with very little in between. Those reactions will be the wave Warner Bros. will attempt to ride as we wait for the movie to release wide at the beginning of October. Considering the summer they had, Warner Bros. would really like some of those glowing festival reactions.

Joker: Folie À Deux: Summary, Cast List, Release Date

From acclaimed writer/director/producer Todd Phillips comes Joker: Folie À Deux, the much-anticipated follow-up to 2019's Academy Award-winning Joker, which earned more than $1 billion at the global box office and remains the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. The new film stars Joaquin Phoenix once again in his Oscar-winning dual role as Arthur Fleck/Joker opposite Oscar-winner Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born).

Joker: Folie À Deux finds Arthur Fleck institutionalized at Arkham, awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur not only stumbles upon true love but also finds the music that's always been inside him.

The film also stars Oscar nominees Brendan Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Catherine Keener (Get Out, Capote), alongside Zazie Beetz, reprising her role from Joker. Phillips, who was nominated for Oscars for directing, writing, and producing Joker, directed Joker: Folie À Deux from a screenplay by fellow Oscar nominee Scott Silver & Phillips, based on characters from DC. The film was produced by Phillips, Oscar nominee Emma Tillinger Koskoff and Joseph Garner. Lady Gaga served as music consultant. The film's executive producers are Michael E. Uslan, Georgia Kacandes, Silver, Mark Friedberg, and Jason Ruder.

Warner Bros. Pictures Presents A Joint Effort Production, A Film by Todd Phillips, Joker: Folie À Deux. The film will be released worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, and will be only in theaters nationwide on October 4, 2024, and beginning internationally on 2 October, 2024.

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