DYNAMIC DUO

Harley Quinn rides shotgun. If music be the food of blood…

Asidekick is born: Lady Gaga debuts her incarnation of Harley Quinn, alongside Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur

With the subtitle Folie à Deux (meaning Madness for Two in French), Todd Phillips’ sequel to his billion-dollar-earning 2019 movie is giving Joaquin Phoenix’s failed clown Arthur Fleck a dance partner – and it’s none other than Harley Quinn. Don’t expect an all-singing, all-grinning-and-grimacing Margot Robbie, though. Phillips’ Joker was set in a different timeline to other DC movies, and it’s Lady Gaga who’ll bring the bonkers.

‘I think she’ll do something incredible with it,’ says Robbie, and we at TF Towers agree because a) the singer-songwriter has already proven herself a first-rate actor in A Star Is Born and House of Gucci; and b) did we mention that Joker: Folie à Deux is a musical? ‘Something I appreciate about Todd Phillips – who I’ve done seven movies with, including Joker – is that he’s always taking risks,’ says DoP Lawrence Sher. ‘This movie is a big swing.’

Joker 2 shot from December 2022 to April 2023, and though little is yet known about the plot, it’s fair to presume that Arthur will now be the fully-fledged Joker. The 2019 movie, lest you forget, finished with riots tearing through Gotham and Fleck under lock and key in Arkham State Hospital. Or was he? The final shot of Arthur leaving bloody footprints in his wake as he danced down a corridor suggested he might’ve been busting out.

That title, Madness for Two, indicates there’s to be more exploring of a fractured psyche (or rather psyches), a move that won the original both plaudits and condemnation, some seeing it as bold and real-life relatable, some as a fingerpainted portrait of serious mental-health issues.

Will Joker: Folie à Deux likewise split viewers into camps of the electrified and the enraged? And could Phoenix, in his first ever sequel, become the first actor to win two Oscars for the same part? Send in the clown.