Can The Joker film series continue without Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix? Here’s how we think it can.
MAJOR SPOILERS! Joker: Folie á Deux caused quite a stir with its ending, which saw Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) publicly renounce his identity as “Joker,” only to end up back in Arkham State Hospital, convicted for the murders he committed in the first film. Arthur’s stay in Arkham turns out to be short: a young inmate who has been infatuated with “Joker” approaches Arthur in the hallway and stabs him repeatedly, leaving Arthur to seemingly bleed out on the floor and die, while the inmate carves a smile into the corners of his mouth, laughing manically.
Joker: Folie á Deux makes it clear that director Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix are done with this series, and have no desire to be the poster boys for any “official” origin story for The Joker character. It’s just as apparent that fans are largely over the idea of The Joker even needing an origin story. But that doesn’t mean the series of Joker movies has to also come to an end.
What Went Wrong With These Joker Movies
Fans couldn’t help but view Joker (2019) as an origin story of THE Joker from Batman mythology – despite Phillips, Phoenix, and everyone involved openly proclaiming that it wasn’t tied to any Batman movie universe or mythos. There were valid reasons for that: The elements that Phillips borrowed from comics like Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, and a retro throwback setting (that could’ve synched with a number of Batman movie timelines) seemed like connective clues that were too strong to be coincidence.
The confusion about what the Joker film franchise was supposed to be, and why it even needed to exist in the first place, was always an anchor hanging around Phillips’ films. But now that the door has been opened on Joker as a solo movie character, the concept can be done differently – arguably better – in further installments.
How Joker 2 Sets Up More Sequels
Joker: Folie á Deux‘s climactic act and ending posit the idea that the character of “Joker” grows beyond Arthur Fleck and becomes a mantle of violence, anarchy, and chaos that various disturbed and/or disgruntled men want to claim. Why fight the tide on that idea, when, like comics, there are so many other fun ways to play with that character and concept?
There’s the obvious choice of Joker 3 completing a trilogy where Arthur survives, but has to confront the tragedy and threat of all the Joker copycats he’s created; it could even get “funny” and adapt a comic like Three Jokers as a threequel idea (namely, Arthur vs. two copycats based on different versions of The Joker). But since Phillips and Phoenix seem done with all this, Warner Bros. and DC should probably start thinking of other ways to go – without the Arthur Fleck character.
How The Joker Movies Can Continue Without Arthur Fleck
Having The Joker be a villain with no clear origin or identity has pretty much become a core part of the character. The Joker movie series can easily embrace that concept and become an anthology of different Joker stories. With the audience in on the joke that none of these stories is official, future Joker films can be a framework for whatever themes and metaphors creators can hammer out for why a person becomes a clown-faced maniac stalking Gotham City – be they odes to comic story arcs and Joker depictions or new creations.
There’s also the easy approach of doing a Joker movie that’s not an origin story. Plenty of recent comic book series have been built around Joker as a solo character. For example, the limited series Batman: White Knight (2017-2018) by Sean Murphy re-imagines “Jack Napier” as having cured his “Joker” persona and successfully starting a career in politics as an ordinary citizen. Of course, the story gets more complicated than that, as Napier’s anti-Batman political platform and mental stability both become sources of conflict. It’s an acclaimed story that spawned its alt-universe of sequels and spinoff storylines – and definitely, a series fans want to see onscreen. Just one example of what the Joker movie brand can do, going forward.
It’s not that different than The Crow or Hellboy movie series, which have both dabbled in soft reboots of the titular characters for different films aimed at different eras of viewers. The Joker isn’t dead as a solo movie franchise – but if it continues, it needs to do more than we got from Phillips’ films.
Joker: Folie á Deux is now in theaters.
