In the comics, Batman’s rival The Joker is insane, but he’s also capable, calculating, and seemingly a competent organizer, often working with armies of minions that presumably get paid and everything. Not so in the movie Joker, where filmmaker Todd Phillips reinvented the character as Arthur Fleck, a sad loser who snaps and eventually murders someone on live television. The first movie ended with Arthur headed to Arkham, and in the second movie, he will meet Lee Quinzel, a fellow patient with whom he builds a special bond. Whereas the traditional Joker/Harley relationship was built around Joker manipulating his therapist and driving her mad, this new take isn’t quite so conniving.
The other thing he isn’t? A crime lord. In Joker: Folie a Deux, Arthur Fleck won’t be a key player in Gotham’s underworld. He’s more or less the same guy from the first movie, even if he’s a bit famous now.
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“We would never do that,” Phillips told Empire in an interview timed to San Diego Comic Con. “Because Arthur clearly is not a criminal mastermind. He was never that.”
Celebrity will play a role in the movie, though, as Arthur’s cult of personality will apparently carry through even now that he’s behind bars.
“Arthur has become this symbol to people,” Phillips added. “This unwilling, unwitting symbol now paying for the crimes of the first film, but at the same time finding the only thing he ever wanted, which was love. That’s always what he’s been about, even though he’s been pushed and pulled in all these directions. So we tried to just make the most pure version of that.”
Originally created in Batman: The Animated Series, Harley Quinn began her existence as little more than a foil for Joker. She took on a life of her own in the comics, particularly after DC’s 2011 “New 52” reboot. Harley got her own book during that era, written by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, and established many of the personality traits that have carried over into more modern adaptations of the character. Since 2011, she has appeared in three live-action movies — Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, and The Suicide Squad — and had her own acclaimed animated series on Max.
Warner Bros. will release Joker: Folie à Deux only in theaters on October 4.
