Joker 2 has a truly stratospheric budget: it promises to be even more iconic than the first film!
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| Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures |
Joker (2019) has become a cultural phenomenon with billions of box office grosses, yet the film has been marketed as an "indie" and/or a "prestige" film, rather than a blockbuster or a comic book. Warner Bros. won't be able to replicate this trick, passing off the upcoming sequel as a low budget with low expectations. Director Todd Phillips' next film, Joker: Folie A Deux, more than tripled the cost budget of the first.
The figures, the data reveal, are truly exorbitant!
Joker 2: ambitious but above all incredibly expensive film!
The data released on Joker 2's budget was revealed in a larger report on the entire cost of Warner Bros. investing large sums of money to attract A-list stars and blockbuster directors to work with the studio. The purpose? Create high-value premium content. According to Variety's reread of reports, Joker 2's $200 million cost largely comes from series star Joaquin Phoenix getting $20 million for the sequel, while his co-star Lady Gaga ( who will play Harley Quinn alongside Phoenix as the Joker) gets 12 million dollars. Together, this represents over half of the budget of the first Joker, without considering all the usual cost increases that accompany making a "bigger and better" sequel.
The sequel's big budget is now known to the general public, and there are consequently high expectations from both DC fans and mainstream audiences who are interested in seeing Gaga in the role of Harley Quinn after Margot Robbie played the character on the big screen. With all these expectations at stake, it's even riskier for Warner Bros. to have chosen a musical format for Joker: Folie A Deux. Musicals are a divisive genre to begin with, and a comic book musical – set in the R-rated world of Joker – is a feat no one has ever seen done before, and thus, box office earnings can't really be estimated at this moment.
What is Joker 2 about? Joker: Folie a Deux will be a musical that follows the murky romance between Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck / Joker and Gaga's Harley Quinn. The title is a reference to a psychological condition in which two people who are nearby will share a common hallucination – usually caused by the more dominant personality of the two and which is reflected in the other person's psyche. The disorder is rare and usually affects people within extremely close families or sometimes religious groups and romantic relationships. The title itself arguably hints at the film's premise - and helps validate rumors that much of the film will take place within Batman's iconic Arkham Asylum location.
The sequel will bring back Zazie Beetz as Arthur Fleck/Joker's neighbor, Sophie. New cast members confirmed to appear in Joker 2 include Jacob Lofland (Maze Runner), Brendon Gleeson (Paddington 2), and Catherine Keener (John Malkovich).
Joker: Folie A Deux has a release date of October 4th.
Source: Comic Book
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