The first trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux is here and it looks absolutely wild

Well, the first trailer for this fall’s Joker: Folie à Deux is here, and it looks exactly like you might think a jukebox musical sequel to Joker about Arthur Fleck and Harley Quinn would look like.

Todd Phillips’ follow-up to the billion-dollar smash hit and deeply polarizing Oscar winner Joker brings back Joaquin Phoenix as the clown prince of crime and teams him up with Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn as they seemingly fall in love and bring havoc upon Gotham City.

We’re not exactly sure what’s going on here, other than Fleck and Quinn seemingly meet in Arkham Asylum and spark an old-school Hollywood romance with each other to the tune of Jackie DeShannon and Burt Bacharach. There also seems to be a big court trial and subsequent protest going on, one where we’re guessing the Joker is the plaintiff and Gotham City (and probably Harvey Dent) are the defendants.

Just from this glance, Phillips is borrowing visually from directors like Martin Scorsese (New York, New York), Bob Fosse (All That Jazz), Stanley Donen (Singin’ in the Rain), Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), Vincente Minnelli (An American in Paris) and even Damien Chazelle (La La Land) here as he stages his twisted take on the movie musical.

We only hope the script this time around has much more going for it than the muddled mayhem from the first film.

Some disturbing content to follow: 

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga star in the first trailer for #Joker: Folie à Deux – in theaters October 4. pic.twitter.com/jQ04UaNsrq

— Rotten Tomatoes (@RottenTomatoes) April 10, 2024

Whether this is a major improvement from the fascinating-if-flawed first installment or an absolute trainwreck, you cannot say this film looks boring.

We’ll see who gets the last laugh when Joker: Folie à Deux opens in theaters on Oct. 4. Expect a possible film festival bow at Venice later in the summer.