Joaquin Phoenix Open to a ‘Joker’ Sequel

Joker
“Joker” starring Joaquin Phoenix was planned as a one-off movie. It’s star, however, thinks there’s still a story to be explored from his character, Arthur Fleck, who is also known as Batman’s nemesis in the DC Comics world.

Speaking with The Los Angeles Times, Phoenix said that he loved the movie’s self-contained element. He was attracted to doing “Joker” because the movie was not going to be developed into more movies.

Phoenix also didn’t like the idea of doing a sequel just because the first movie did well. “Joker” was critically acclaimed and earned an astounding record at the box office. As of this writing, the movie is pegged to be crossing over the $1 billion-mark as it continues to run in theaters.

However, while filming, Phoenix revealed that he talked to director Todd Phillips about a sequel. Now, it is up to Phillips, who co-wrote the script with Phoenix and Scott Silver, to come up with a sequel story.

“Long before the release or before we had any idea if it would be successful, we talked about sequels. In the second or third week of shooting, I was like, ‘Todd, can you start working on a sequel? There’s way too much to explore.’ It was kind of in jest — but not really.”

The official synopsis of “Joker” below:

Director Todd Phillips’ Joker centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fractured society. A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night…but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty, Arthur makes one bad decision that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty character study.