The Joker is back, but this time he’s not alone. Warner Bros. has unveiled the first unhinged trailer for “Joker: Folie à Deux,” teasing a dark romantic musical pairing Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck with Lady Gaga as his unhinged partner Harley Quinn.
The trailer opens inside the haunting corridors of Arkham Asylum, where a chance encounter between the incarcerated Joker and a mysterious new inmate (Gaga) leads to an instant deranged connection.
As the two revel in each other’s mania, they make plans to bust out of their padded cells and unleash mayhem on the streets of Gotham City.
From there, the trailer moves on into an unnerving yet whimsical musical fantasy. The demented duo twirl and waltz their way through Gotham, painting the town red while Joker performs on stage with Harley as his muse, both decked out in his iconic clown makeup.
The tone meshes the gritty, mentally unstable world of the first “Joker” with flashes of heightened, almost camp-inspired spectacle and choreography reminiscent of a classic Hollywood musical. It’s an audacious creative swing by the director Todd Phillips to not just retread the first film’s bleak character study.
Nothing further exposes what the plot will be about but the trailer suggests “Folie à Deux” will explore the turbulent, co-dependent relationship between the Joker and his new partner in crime Harley. Just so you know, the film’s title refers to a psychological disorder where two people share the same delusions.
Phoenix and Gaga certainly seem committed to embracing the madness, with the pop star making a bold first impression as Gotham’s self-styled criminal queen. The trailer ends with Harley applying lipstick to a cell glass separating the two lovers.
After shocking the world in 2019 with an R-rated $1 billion box office hit, all eyes will be on whether Phillips and Phoenix can recreate that dark magic with this even more outrageous-looking musical follow-up when “Joker: Folie à Deux” hits theaters October 4, 2024.
