Warner Bros. Chiefs Praise JOKER 2 For Refusing to Play It Safe, Even as the Sequel Stumbled
Joker: Folie à Deux was supposed to be a victory lap. Instead, it’s cemented itself as one of the most shocking misfires in comic book movie history. That contrast is exactly what makes the fallout around the film so fascinating, especially when Warner Bros.’ top film executives are still standing by it.
The original Joker shocked the industry back in 2019, pulling in more than $1 billion worldwide and turning Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck into a full-blown pop culture icon.
Expectations were massive, and Joker: Folie à Deux clearly had no interest in meeting them in the traditional sense. Instead of doubling down on grim realism, director Todd Phillips swung hard in the opposite direction, delivering a prison-set musical co-starring Lady Gaga that actively questioned the myth of the Joker itself.
Audiences didn’t follow and the sequel finished its theatrical run with $207 million worldwide against a reported $200 million budget, a brutal drop from its predecessor and a result that left little room for spin. By any mainstream measure, the experiment didn’t land.
Still, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group chiefs Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca aren’t distancing themselves from the film now that the dust has settled. In fact, they’re doing the opposite.
"I really liked the movie, I still do," Abdy told The Wrap.
De Luca then laid out why the sequel may have alienated viewers while also defending the creative gamble that defined it.
"It was really revisionist. It may be that it was too revisionist for a global mainstream audience, but I thought that Todd and his screenwriting partner Scott [Silver] did the thing that most people making sequels don’t do, which is they decided to not repeat themselves.
“I do give them immense props for not repeating themselves, but it just turned out to not connect with the audience."
That refusal to repeat the past is exactly what made Joker: Folie à Deux such a jolt. The film actively dismantles the version of the Joker that audiences latched onto after the first movie, culminating in an ending that feels intentionally harsh and confrontational.
Mean-spirited? Maybe. Uncompromising? Absolutely. Whether or not it worked is still up for debate, but it’s hard to argue that the film played things safe.
In a way, the sequel mirrors the character at its center. It dares the audience to come along, knowing full well many won’t.