The JOKER: FOLIE Á DEUX Opening Was Inspired by Looney Tunes
The creative team behind Joker: Folie à Deux made an effort to do something really different and unique with this next chapter of Arther Fleck’s story with both the story and its highly-stylized visual elements.
It’s explained by director Todd Phillips that there is a wild "variety-show sequence" and a Looney Tunes-inspired cartoon that will open the movie.
According to Variety, The Triplets of Belleville animator Sylvain Chomet was hired to animate the opening to the movie. They also say that the variety show sequence will present Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) and Harley (Lady Gaga) portraying “a homicidal Sonny and Cher.”
Phillips also shared that they briefly entertained the idea of doing a Broadway engagement for the story, but the practical concerns became too much.
The director said: “When we started really thinking about it, we realized it takes four years to put something like that together. And is Joaquin really going to give six months of his life to do that every night onstage? Then we thought about doing it at the Carlyle as sort of a smaller thing. But COVID hit.”
The idea is that Fleck finally figures out a way to express himself to the world, and that is through song.
Phillips went on to say: "The goal of this movie is to make it feel like it was made by crazy people. The inmates are running the asylum."
Joker: Folie à Deux is set a few years after the first movie, as Arthur Fleck is a patient at Arkham Asylum, where he faces the death penalty. It’s here he meets and falls in love with a music therapist and fellow patient named Lee aka Harley Quinn. The characters form a strong relationship over their shared delusions.
Joker: Folie á Deux is scheduled for release on October 4, 2024.