Bad news Joker fans – Todd Phillips, the director of Joker and Joker 2, appears to be done bringing the crown prince of crime to the screen.
Phillips mentioned this in a recent interview following the release of Joker 2, aka Joker: Folie a Deux.
The film received mixed-to-positive reviews when released at the Venice Film Festival, however this week’s early screenings have seen catastrophic reviews from viewers.
This has culminated in a plummeting Rotten Tomatoes score, which at the time of writing has fallen as low as 39 percent.
Johnny Oleksinki of The New York Post said in their one-out-of-four-rated review: “For nearly two and a half hours, director Todd Phillips’ pathologically unnecessary movie cycles through so many potential reasons to exist… it ultimately never finds a satisfying one.”
Though it’s unclear how much was pre-planned and how much was in response to this reaction, Phillips is calling it quits.
He told The Hollywood Reporter, when asked about the possibility of a stand-alone film about Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn introduced in the sequel: “It’s not really where this movie is headed for me. I feel like my time in the DC Universe was these two films.”
Sorry Joker fans, but if another is coming, it looks like Phillips will not be at the helm.
He said of the process of getting Lady Gaga on board as Quinn: “I think we sent her half the script, and she texted me pretty quickly that she was really into it, that she loved it and everything you want to hear.
“I went out to her house, and we met about what it was going to be, the rest of it, because we hadn’t written it yet.
“[Co-writer] Scott Silver and I are notoriously slow writers.”
The film has not been well received by fans, who have been writing vociferous reviews on Twitter.
Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix (Matt Winkelmeyer via Getty Images)
One focused on the common criticism of the fact that it’s a musical, and read:
“Musicals are good and there should be more of them.
“Joker 2 is bad because it’s nonsensical, unfocused, and the story has no reason to exist. Not because it’s a musical.”
Another read: “What makes Joker 2 so bad is that it refuses to commit to ANYTHING.
“There’s no theme at all, the court scenes are boring and the shock value ending is worse than I expected.
“Even the musical elements feel tacked on and interrupt the pacing. A total waste of time, never cook again”.
A third claimed to have witnessed walkouts, saying: “Never seen it happen before but every musical set piece this film did, more and more people kept leaving the theatre.”
Featured Image Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer via Getty Images / Warner Brothers
