Todd Phillips says “We’re open” with regard to making a Joker sequel

If you thought that we were going to make it to the end of the year without mentioning the prospect of a sequel to Todd Phillips' JOKER, think again, my friends. After all, you don't get to make a film that grossed over $1 billion on a $60 million dollar budget without expecting studio executives to come knocking at your door, ready and more than willing to hear your plan for making them more money. Recently while attending Deadline's The Contenders New York award-season event, director and co-screenwriter Phillips was asked if he thought that Joker's established history as a complex villain had anything to do with the film's monumental success. To put it plainly, Phillips said no.

“I think it was more than that,” Phillips explained. “I mean, I think there are themes in the movie that really resonated with people. None of us thought an R-rated movie could do over $1 billion across the world. But I think the themes in it really resonated. The thing Scott Silver and I set out to do when we wrote the movie together was to make something meaningful in that comic book space, but also something really that addressed what was going on in 2016, when we started writing. It’s pretty obvious what was happening in our country in 2017 while we were writing it, and really wanted to use Joker to make a movie about the loss of compassion and the lack of decorum in the world.

“I’ve been around the world with the movie,” he continued, “and, speaking to the audiences, some people see it as an indictment of America and other people see it as a mirror for what’s going on in their country, both with the lack of compassion and with the wealth and equality issues.”

Later while addressing a DGA Theater crowd of Academy and guild voters, Phillips made special mention of Joaquin Phoenix's contributions to the film, and how his input was vital to crafting and understanding the character of Arthur Fleck.

“Working with him, for me, was the greatest experience I’ve had in terms of director and actor,” Phillips said while reflecting on his time spent with Phoenix. “I mean part of it was because it’s a character study with one person. I’ve never worked that closely with just one, singular person for 60 days shooting, and for four months leading up to it. He likes to talk about things a lot before we go to set. Meaning, in those four months of prep, we spent a lot of time talking about Arthur, talking about Joker, talking about the transformation, auditioning the laugh, auditioning the voice—all those things that you do. But he goes hard, and we went deep. He likes to just discuss it all.”

Naturally, Phillips then addressed the notion of a sequel being made. And while we've previously established that nothing has been put to paper thus far, Phillips exhibited no hesitation when saying that he's open to the idea, given the right circumstances.

“When a movie does $1 billion and cost $60 million to make, of course it comes up,” Phillips said while appearing quite gleeful. “But Joaquin and I haven’t really decided on it. We’re open. I mean, I’d love to work with him on anything, quite frankly. So who knows? But it would have to have a real thematic resonance the way this one did, ultimately being about childhood trauma and the lack of love, and the loss of empathy. All those things are really what made this movie work for us, so we’d have to have something that had an equal thematic resonance.”

While I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel to JOKER, I do think that the film works on several levels as a standalone character study and social drama. I suppose what I'm saying is that while I don't need an encore, I'm still game for another performance, so long as there's a story that demands telling.

Would you be down for a JOKER sequel? Let us know in the comments section below.