THE GREAT DEBATE: How Did JOKER 2 Go So Wrong?

Once more the sounds of reasoned and respectful argument shall ring out in the hallowed halls of Last Movie Outpost, or maybe it will just be us all shouting at each other during a drunken staff meeting. What? 9:14am? Who are you, my parents? Leave me and my bottle alone!

This time we debate the most recent cinematic debacle (or is it!) that is Joker: Folix a Deux. Just how did they get this one just so completely wrong?

“Over $1 billion without breaking a damn sweat!”

The first Joker movie wasn’t just a hit. It was a massive hit. It was an R-rated superhero villain origin movie that somehow powered its way to staggeringly good reviews and even more staggering box office receipts. It won Oscars, for God’s sake!

So a sequel felt kind of inevitable. The sequel hasn’t just flopped. It has cratered. It is looking like it might cost Warner Bros. as much as $200 million. So what exactly went wrong?

The topic of this debate was suggested by our very own Boba Phil. How did Warner Bros. and Todd Phillips get this so wrong, or was that part of a plan, somehow? The way we see it, there are potentially four options that made this go, at least from the studio’s point of view, wrong. They are:

1. They simply made a bad movie that completely failed to find an audience.

Is it though? Surely nobody sets out to make a bad movie, and it does look shiny and glossy and well-made. It stars an Oscar-winning actor. We know Gaga can belt out a tune and was nominated for Best Actress for A Star Is Born. Yet Outposters who have seen it report back that it is simply not an enjoyable experience. We know the audience exists, as superhero movies are still a draw and crowds flocked to see the first movie. Months out from release it was tracking superbly. So if they didn’t accidentally make a bad movie, then…

2. They deliberately made a bad movie because they never really wanted to make it.

It didn’t necessarily feel like a sequel was wanted or needed. So was this whole thing a grudging engagement, made by all involved to keep a studio happy but without their heart really being in it? The first movie felt like it had a very definite beginning, middle, and end. So was the sequel never part of their plan? Related to that, perhaps the answer is slightly different…

3. They fundamentally did not understand their own character and their own product.

The movie does not represent a compelling vision of a “so what’s next” story for Arthur Fleck and his continuing journey toward being the Clown Prince Of Crime. As mentioned above, if a sequel was not necessarily wanted, needed, or planned, in trying to find this “what next” story have they simply gone off in the entirely wrong direction and served up nothing a DC fan wants to see? Or, finally…

4. This is all some sort of elaborate troll or performance art.

A $200 million practical joke? Surely not? Well, Phoenix has form for this type of thing. Don’t forget, the creatives also got mighty upset at the original movie as it seemed to speak to, and be adopted by, a group of people they didn’t really like, There was lots of talk about Joker being some kind of “Anarchist Incel” movie. There was even a comical moral panic about it causing some form of civil unrest.

So did they deliberately set out to make something that would annoy fans of the first Joker movie? Or to make some kind of statement?

Maybe it was a little bit of all of these. Maybe we will never really know. What do you think?

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