What better way then to celebrate toxic love and toxic relationships than a new image of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn in the upcoming “Joker” sequel on Valentine’s Day? Well, that is exactly what filmmaker Todd Phillips did this evening on V-day, revealing the first image from “Joker: Folie à Deux,” featuring Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn and Joaquin Phoenix reprising his role as The Joker/Arthur Fleck.
While the image doesn’t reveal that much, it may presumably reveal Gaga’s look in the film—pre-Harley makeup—and shows a disheveled Phoenix wearing faint traces of his Joker makeup.
READ MORE: ‘Joker 2’: Lady Gaga Joining Joaquin Phoenix As Harley Quinn In A Musical Sequel
It’s unclear what the story of the movie is, but in the comics, and also depicted in 2016’s “Suicide Squad” by director David Ayer, Harley Quinn is originally Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a psychiatrist who falls in love with Fleck/The Joker during her internship at Arkham Asylum. While she’s depicted as the Joker’s sidekick, other versions of the comics portray her as a supervillain who has left her abusive relationship with the Joker behind. And yes, so toxic/abusive relations are the elemental ingredient of the story—maybe this is why Phillips fittingly and ironically chose to reveal the image today of all day.
The sequel to the $1 billion dollar grossing “Joker” film—one of only two DC Films that have ever reached that milestone and the highest-grossing R-Rated movie of all time—’ Folie à Deux’ has been described as a musical, psychological thriller film that is directed by Phillips from a screenplay he co-wrote with Scott Silver.
The cast also includes Zazie Beetz, who reprises her single mother character from the original, and Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Jacob Lofland, and Harry Lawtey, who all have been cast in undisclosed roles.
How does “Joker: Folie à Deux” fit into the DC Studios plan now that James Gunn is the co-chief of all things DC with Peter Safran? Well, it and Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” franchise remain untouched and unbothered. While Gunn clearly wants to shut down duplicate versions of things and streamline the brands—look at the way the CW has basically either canceled all its DC shows or is in the process of sunsetting them all— it was hard to justify canceling these two hits.
So “The Batman” and “Joker” franchises will fall under the Elseworlds branding—a DC Comics term that essentially signifies things that fall under a different timeline and essentially live outside the DC Studios canon.
Folie à Deux is a reference to a medical term for an identical or similar mental disorder impacting two or more people, usually the members of a close family. “Joker: Folie à Deux” is scheduled to be released theatrically on October 4, 2024. Check out the first-look image below.