Joker: Folie à Deux/Production

Production

Development

Joker (2019) was intended to be a standalone film. Warner Bros. intended for it to launch DC Black, a line of DC Comics–based films unrelated to the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) franchise with darker, more experimental material, similar to the DC Black Label comics publisher. However, even before the film wrapped, Joaquin Phoenix told director Todd Phillips that he did not feel ready to leave Arthur Fleck behind; one night while falling asleep, Phoenix had a dream of his character performing onstage, telling jokes and singing, giving him the idea of possibly doing a musical sequel. They then brought the idea to producer Toby Emmerich. While Phillips said in August 2019 that he would be interested in making a sequel, depending on the film's performance and if Phoenix was interested, he later clarified that "the movie's not set up to [have] a sequel. We always pitched it as one movie, and that's it."

In October 2019, Phoenix spoke of reprising his role as Arthur Fleck, saying: "I can't stop thinking about it... if there's something else, we can do with Joker that might be interesting." In another interview, he said: "It's nothing that I really wanted to do prior to working on this movie. I don't know that there is [more to do] ... Because it seemed endless, the possibilities of where we can go with the character." He was paid $20 million for his involvement. As the film went on to earn more than $1 billion, Phoenix and Phillips thought about a possible follow-up in the form of a Broadway theatre show. They did not consider making a conventional sequel depicting Arthur's development into Batman's nemesis by turning him into the Clown Prince of Crime or putting him in charge of a criminal syndicate, despite the original film's depiction of the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents. Phillips preferred to focus on how Arthur's breakdown captivated Gotham, being interested in examining how the very idea of entertainment went from movies and television to whatever scandal the news currently air.

In November 2019, The Hollywood Reporter reported that a sequel was in development, with Phillips, writer Scott Silver and Phoenix reprising their duties. However, Deadline Hollywood reported the same day that The Hollywood Reporter's story was false and that negotiations had not even begun. Phillips responded to the reports by saying that he had discussed a sequel with Warner Bros., and it remained a possibility, but it was not in development. Phillips and Phoenix started seriously considering the idea of making a Broadway sequel show to Joker at the Carlisle Theatre. After the original plans were changed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Phillips and Silver began developing a sequel while still considering Phoenix's musical concept. Phillips found the idea risky and "dangerous" enough to give the film "audacity and complexity" with music, dance, drama, courtroom drama, comedy, happiness and sadness and a traditional love story. Aware that young moviegoers may not be interested due to preferring usual comic book films, Phillips banked on their "appetite" for something new and different to help the film differentiate itself from remakes and reboots. Phoenix suggested the idea of teaming Arthur with a "female Joker" that could serve as his dance partner in a "kind of psychotic tango". This led Phillips and Silver to the idea of including Harley Quinn, a female villain associated with the Joker and first introduced in Batman: The Animated Series, to serve that purpose.

In early June 2021, Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy took over as co-heads of Warner Bros.'s movie studio, with production of a sequel to Joker being one of their first decisions due to how the film helped redefine the "heights" a comic book movie could reach, a decision done under orders of Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav, who wanted to recover from the losses the company suffered throughout 2021 due to sending many of their films to Max and explot the DC brand fully. In June 2022, Phillips announced that the sequel was in development, with a script by him and Silver. The film was also revealed to be titled Joker: Folie à Deux. By February 2023, DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn confirmed that Folie à Deux would be a DC Elseworlds project, taking place outside the main cinematic DC Universe (DCU). Phillips' goal for the film was to make it feel like it had been produced by "crazy people", but struggled with referring to the film as a "musical", as the film lacks traditional musical numbers, and most of the music contains dialogue, with songs like "Get Happy", "For Once in My Life" and "That's Life" being played when Arthur cannot pronounce the words he wants to say, with those songs conveying the emotions Arthur Fleck and Harley Quinn feel with what they seek in their relationships, with the former being drawn to romantic ballads and the latter preferring music about power.

On July 25, 2024, in an exclusive cover story for Empire, Lady Gaga commented on the singing required of her: "It was unlike anything I've ever done before. [...] For me, there's plenty of notes, actually, from Lee. I'm a trained singer, right? So even my breathing was different when I sang as Lee. When I breathe to sing on stage, I have this very controlled way to make sure that I'm on pitch and it's sustained at the right rhythm and amount of time, but Lee would never know how to do any of that. So, it's like removing the technicality of the whole thing, removing my perceived art-form from it all and completely being inside of who she is." Phillips also said of this specific interpretation of the character, "While there are some things that people would find familiar in her, it's really Gaga's own interpretation, and Scott [Silver, co-writer] and I's interpretation. She became the way how Manson had girls that idolized him. The way that sometimes these [imprisoned murderers] have people that look up to them. There are things about Harley in the movie that were taken from the comic books, but we took it and made it to the way we wanted it to be." Despite Gaga and Phoenix showing off their musical skills in past projects, Phillips did not require them to sing professionally, preferring a "rawer, more unstable sound" that fluctuated between euphoria and despair, which occasionally required singing off-key. The filmmakers asked themselves what needed to happen for two individuals to break into song in the middle of a conversation and where the music could come from when no one but the protagonists can hear it. They rationalized that the main characters are not, or should sound like, professional singers with vibrato and perfect notes, instead sounding "nerve-racking but honest".

On August 20, 2024, an exclusive cover story for Variety revealed that the film would open with a Looney Tunes–inspired cartoon animated by The Triplets of Belleville animator Sylvain Chomet, which would be followed by prison riots, courtroom legal fights and a variety show sequence that has Phoenix and Gaga portrayed as a homicidal Sonny & Cher. The film's ending, which sees a younger Arkham Asylum inmate carving a Glasgow smile for himself after a violent altercation with Arthur, was originally planned for the first film's original scripted ending according to one source, with Arthur carving himself one in front of his crowd of supporters. However, Christopher Nolan did not allow the filmmakers to go through the idea as he mandated that only Heath Ledger's version of the Joker from his film The Dark Knight (2008) should have a Glasgow smile. By the time Joker: Folie à Deux entered development, Nolan and his company Syncopy Inc. no longer worked with Warner Bros. after disagreements with their release treatment for Tenet (2020) by quickly sending it to Max, having moved on since 2021 to Universal Pictures to direct Oppenheimer (2023), hence allowing Phillips and his crew to implement the idea in the film with the patient who encounters Arthur.

Casting

Days after the film's official announcement, it was announced Gaga was in talks to portray Harley Quinn and that the film would be a musical. An expert in reinvention, Gaga accepted the role due to seeing the part as a new challenge that was something she had never done previously after her film appearances in A Star is Born (2018) and House of Gucci (2021) as well as she recognizing having two extremes in identity and duality as her character applied to her two due to complicatedly having like a second life in her celebrity singer persona. Gaga would confirm her casting later that summer. She received $12 million for her involvement. In August 2022, it was reported Zazie Beetz was in negotiations to reprise her role as Sophie Dumond in the film. Beetz was confirmed to be reprising her role the following month, alongside the cast additions of Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener and Jacob Lofland. Gleeson joined the project out of his admiration for both Phoenix's "indelible" performance in the first film and Gaga, but admitted to being "kinda intimidated" by what he had to do for his role. In October, Harry Lawtey joined the cast in what Deadline Hollywood reported as a "big role", later revealed to be that of Harvey Dent by the film's official trailer. Lawtey taped an audition for Phillips, consisting of a recorded self-talk between himself and a friend of his, just as HBO renewed Industry (2020-present) in Fall 2022, not expecting to get the role, for which he had no information. A couple of weeks later, Lawtey had a Zoom call with Phillips, during which he offered him the role of Dent straight away even though his team assumed it was going to be a note session for a second read.

Filming

The abandoned Essex County Isolation Hospital in New Jersey (pictured in March 2023, with vintage cars and props) served as a filming location for Arkham State Hospital.

Principal photography began on December 10, 2022, with Phillips releasing a first look on his Instagram account and Lawrence Sher serving as cinematographer. Sher had cited Francis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart (1982) as a source of visual inspiration for the film. Exterior filming occurred in New York City and Los Angeles by March 2023. Gaga had filmed scenes with a crowd of extras demanding Joker's arrest outside the New York County Courthouse, which had led some onlookers nearby to mistake it for Trump's arrest following his first indictment. Arkham Asylum scenes were filmed at the abandoned Essex County Isolation Hospital in Belleville, New Jersey. In April 2023, filming took place at the "Joker Stairs", the stairway on West 167th Street in the Bronx featured prominently in the first film. Filming officially wrapped on April 5, 2023. The film is shot entirely with IMAX-certified digital cameras, including the Arri Alexa 65, the same camera used in filming for Joker.

Unlike many musicals that have actors sing along to a pre-recorded track, Phoenix and Gaga performed the musical numbers live, accompanied by a piano player who performed off-camera keeping up with whatever tempo they established. Meanwhile, Phillips tried to sync the radically different takes into a coherent whole in the editing room, describing the experience as a "nightmare".

Paparazzi photos from the film's set depicted a shot of Lady Gaga kissing a woman in a key scene during Arthur's trial, in which Lee would have passed a group of protestors and plant a kiss on the woman (which Gaga allegedly improvised) before proceeding to meet with Arthur as in the finished film, where she does a soft song and dance number beforehand. However, Phillips nixed the shot and left it as a deleted scene once he realized that it required dialogue from the woman which would have ruined the moment's vibe.

Post-production

In December 2023, Gunn revealed he reviewed shot material and gave his notes regarding it, but had no involvement with the film otherwise. It was later reported that his notes and Peter Safran's were rejected by Philips, who according to one source, "wanted nothing to do with DC" while making the film with an extraordinary level of autonomy and power over the final cut, allowing him to bypass any oversight from the brand's gatekeepers and distancing himself from it despite Gunn's support for the film, resulting in no DC executives being involved as the film's greenlightning happened when the studio was in a chaotic restructure and the lack of the DC Studios' logo presence in the film's beginning. The film wasn't also test screened in advance, though insiders claimed this was a mutual agreement between Phillips and the studio to prevent leaks about spoilers, even though past "spoiler-heavy plotted" films like the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Avengers: Endgame (2019) had multiple test screenings.

The film was more expensive than its predecessor, which had a budget of around $60 million, with some publications noting the costs for Joker: Folie à Deux as high as $200 million, though Phillips denied that figure. It was later reported that the figure was due to Philips’ insistence of shooting in expensive areas such as downtown Los Angeles, despite the studio’s insistence of shooting on their set in London (which would’ve saved the film’s budget up to $12m). Phoenix and Gaga being paid $12m and $20m respectively also contributed to this. According to some sources, while backed by FedEx founder Frederick W. Smith, Alcon Entertainment put up Village Roadshow's portion from the first film with an eagerness to have a stake in the production, but Zaslav's regime didn't want to lose too much money so the project ultimately got just one co-financier, that being its slate financing partner Domain Entertainment.

Industrial Light & Magic provided the visual effects for the film.