DC Comics’ supreme villain has descended upon the Venice Film Festival. Director Todd Phillips, Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga swept onto the Lido arm-in-arm Wednesday to focus on about the arrival of Warner Bros’ wildly anticipated sequel Joker: Folie à Deux. The director and his stars are in Italy in hopes of recreating the first Joker film’s principal and commercial magic, which effectively started when it won Venice’s prestigious Golden Lion in 2019 — an exceedingly uncommon honor for a Hollywood superhero movie. The film went on to place over $1 billion at the worldwide box spot of enterprise and earned Phoenix a handiest-actor Oscar.
Phillips prompt a packed press conference in Italy that “it feels correct” to be aid in Venice debuting his sequel, but he conceded that making the observe-up and bringing it to the sphere’s oldest film competition made him “extra worried.”
“It’s lots more straightforward to come aid into something as an rebel than it’s because the incumbent,” he said. “There’s indubitably a sense of additional nervousness with this 2d one.”
Phillips said he and his valuable person, Phoenix, on a fashioned foundation joked on negate for the length of the making of the first Joker that their efforts would spawn a series of sequels in the customary Hollywood superhero vein. But they sooner or later did deem to come aid aid collectively for a observe-up, but simplest on the shared belief that it “needed to feel valorous and like we had been in actuality swinging for the fences,” in conserving with Philips. The director said they requested themselves, “Could per chance we gain something surprising just like the first one even supposing it’s a sequel?”
Phoenix returns to the role of Arthur Fleck for Joker 2, while Lady Gaga joins the franchise in a phase impressed by the comedian book character Harley Quinn. The duo are identified for his or her toxic romantic relationship in the comics, with the title Folie à Deux referencing the scientific term for the same or same psychological dysfunction impacting two or extra of us, basically participants of the same family. The film’s supporting solid comprises Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener and Zazie Beetz.
Phillips and Phoenix said their tips for the sequel hinged on the notion of leaning extra carefully into the musical world that occupies the cracked mind of Arthur Fleck. Early in the press conference Philipps said the premise was impressed by a dream Phoenix had — however the famously quick actor in the muse declined to focus on about it forward of the media. Later he relented, to an extent, announcing, “I had this dream that I was performing as Joker doing songs, and I correct called Todd on fable of I believed there would maybe be something there — and there wasn’t,” he claimed, with Phillips shaking his head and laughing beside him.
Lady Gaga, whom Phillips and Phoenix referred to by her non-stage title Stephanie throughout the press conference, said working with Phoenix was “a toddle.” She then looked to her director and co-valuable person and laughed knowingly, but it absolutely was unclear whether she was chuckling about Phoenix’s customarily rocky public reputation or their experiences collectively on negate.
“I in actuality in actuality enjoyed it and it was a fully diversified trip than I’ve ever had with one other actor,” Gaga said of her co-valuable person. “He’s incredibly free and free.”
When requested on their weight reduction for the film, Phoenix declined to pronounce precisely what number of pounds he misplaced. “It felt a bit extra hard, but it absolutely is protected. But you’re factual, I’m now 49, I doubtlessly shouldn’t carry out this again. Here’s doubtlessly it for me,” forward of announcing to his co-valuable person: “We did rehearsals and we left for a month and came aid and you’d misplaced a bunch of weight, it was in actuality impressive.” Gaga added: “We fed [Joaquin] blueberries when he was hungry.”
Midway by the press conference in Italy, Phoenix was also requested by a reporter to contend with the scorching controversy that adopted his final-minute resolution to fall out of a jubilant romance movie from director Todd Haynes correct days forward of taking pictures was negate to begin. The cross sparked outrage from Hollywood’s producer neighborhood and has left Haynes and his collaborators in limbo.
Phoenix declined to piece his point of scrutinize on what transpired, announcing, “The replace creatives aren’t here to pronounce their piece, and it correct doesn’t feel like that could maybe per chance per chance be factual.”
“I’m no longer determined how that could maybe per chance per chance be principal, so I correct don’t mediate I will,” he added.
Warner Bros’ professional synopsis of the film reads: Joker: Folie à Deux finds Arthur Fleck institutionalized at Arkham, looking at for trial for his crimes because the Joker. Whereas grappling along with his dual identification, Arthur no longer simplest stumbles upon correct like but to boot discovers the music that has continuously been internal him.
The film received its first press screenings Wednesday morning in Venice. Filmgoers on the ground had been buzzing about Phoenix’s highly efficient and disturbing return because the lead character — as effectively as his strikingly emaciated appearance — and the movie’s sweeping musical sequences, led by a fascinating Gaga.
Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in ‘Joker: Folie à Deux.’
Warner Bros. Images
Phillips was also requested by a journalist whether the sequel was in some manner a response to divided response to the first movie, which some critics seen as embodying and even justifying violence as a reaction to masculine, incel aggrievement — a studying that the journalist asking the count on qualified as “unfair.”
Phillips said responding to such critiques wasn’t his aim the least bit, but he agreed that about a of the criticism felt “undesserved” and said the first film “was painted with a extra or much less a attention-grabbing brush.”
“I realize what of us’s concerns had been,” he added, “But no, I suggest, this movie was no longer in accordance with that in any manner. Films are manner too hard to gain as a assertion in accordance with something.”
“In 2018, when we first made Joker, shall we by no manner comprise imagined it will maybe probably strike this kind of chord with audiences throughout the sphere,” Phillips writes in his professional Venice film fest director’s assertion for Joker 2. “Joaquin and I had talked about a sequel, but by no manner severely — until we witnessed the reaction to Arthur’s tale. If we had been going to carry out it, we knew we needed to swing for the fences; we wished to manufacture something as loopy and valiant as Joker himself. So, Scott Silver and I wrote a script that delved additional into the belief that of identification. Who’s Arthur Fleck? And the place does the music internal him come from?”
The director didn’t rule out returning to work throughout the gritty DC universe he’s created with the Joker motion images, but emphasised that it will maybe probably count upon whether any attention-grabbing actors, like Phoenix, are willing to collaborate with him on this kind of venture: “To this point as persevering with on this place of residing, as a filmmaker, doubtlessly no longer — but for me, it’s hard to even bellow ‘no longer,’” Phillips said. “The entire lot I carry out is dictated on actors. What actor could maybe per chance per chance I work with? Who am I loss of life to work with and can I bear something spherical that person. Clearly, these motion images had been constructed spherical, Joaquin, then we presented Gaga. So I’m able to’t in actuality bellow yes or no, but it absolutely’s no longer essentially my aim to protect on this place of residing.”
For moviegoers struggling to support up with Hollywood’s regular output of superhero sagas, the Joker sequel is phase of the DC Elseworlds ticket, which enables for reports negate outside of the shared DC Universe being crafted by DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran. Matt Reeves’ The Batman Piece II movie and the HBO Max Penguin series also tumble beneath that banner.
Joker 2 releases in North The US on Oct. 4.
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