Joker: Folie à Deux Is Not a Full Musical, but Music Is an ‘Essential Element,’ Says Director

Joker: Folie à Deux director Todd Phillips has confirmed that while his sequel is not a full musical, music will be an “essential element.”

Phillips shared the news during Warner Bros.’ CinemaCon presentation while finally speaking on the reports that said this second Joker film would be a musical. He said the team never really talked about Joker: Folie à Deux being a full musical, but that music would play a big part. Furthermore, he said the movie won’t “veer” too far from the original and that Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck has always had “music in him.”

That musical element has been a big point of curiosity leading up to Joker: Folie à Deux. A recent Variety report said the sequel would feature at least 15 cover songs, along with possibly an original track or two.

We caught a glimpse of this focus on music in Joker: Folie à Deux’s first trailer, which was also revealed at CinemaCon. The trailer shows how it’s making good on the film’s tagline of “He’s not alone anymore” while also showing a change in the story of Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn.

Quinn is usually a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, but this trailer appears to show her as a patient instead. It also leans into the music side with a voiceover that says, “we use music to make us whole, to balance the fractures within ourselves.”

Joker: Folie à Deux will be released in theaters on October 4, 2024, and will be part of DC Elseworlds, which will live outside of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU.

Joker: Folie à Deux: First Trailer ScreenshotsIn our 10/10 review of 2019’s Joker, we said it “isn’t just an awesome comic book movie, it’s an awesome movie, period. It offers no easy answers to the unsettling questions it raises about a cruel society in decline. Joaquin Phoenix’s fully committed performance and Todd Phillips’ masterful albeit loose reinvention of the DC source material make Joker a film that should leave comic book fans and non-fans alike disturbed and moved in all the right ways.”

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Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.