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Joaquin Phoenix is brushing off his dancing shoes and reapplying clown makeup to reprise his role as Arthur Fleck in Todd Phillips' upcoming "Joker" sequel.
"Joker: Folie à Deux" stars Phoenix as the titular DC Comics villain and Lady Gaga as the iconic character Harley Quinn.
Since Warner Bros. debuted the first trailer at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Tuesday, the internet has been buzzing with anticipation for "Joker 2." It's no surprise considering the response to Phillips' 2019 film "Joker," which was the first R-rated movie to cross $1 billion globally at the box office and won two Oscars for best actor (Phoenix) and best original score (Hildur Guðnadóttir).
With a reported $200 million budget, which Phillips recently called "absurd," the stakes couldn't be higher.
Here's everything we know about the "Joker" sequel.
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Deadline reported in 2022 that Zazie Beetz would reprise her role as Sophie Dumond in the sequel. In the first film, her character, a single mom who lives in the same apartment as Arthur, seems like Arthur's love interest until a major plot twist reveals that their budding romance is a figment of Arthur's imagination.
Deadline later reported several more actors who landed roles in "Joker 2": Brendan Gleeson ("The Banshees of Inisherin"), Catherine Keener ("Being John Malkovich"), and Harry Lawtey ("Industry").
The trailer for "Folie à Deux" also revealed that actor and comedian Steve Coogan has a surprise role in the movie.
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The first trailer showed Arthur and Harley dancing on rooftops, stages, and the streets of Gotham City. According to Variety, the movie will be "mostly a jukebox musical," and contain at least 15 new versions of "very well-known" tracks.
"Joker 2" being a musical isn't too far out of left-field considering the first film contained musically driven moments like Phoenix's villain memorably dancing on a set of stairs in the Bronx.
"I think people will be surprised. I don't think it's going to be what they expect, around it being musical," Beetz told Variety in June. "We all sort of express musically and dancing in our lives day-to-day. I think it's going to work really well."
Phillips shared similar comments at CinemaCon when asked if the movie is a musical.
"We never really talked about it like that, but I like to say it's a film where music is an essential element. To me, that doesn't veer too far from the first film," he said. "Arthur's weird and aloof and all these things"
"That informed a lot of the dancing in the first film... it didn't feel like that big of a step here," he added. "It's different, but I think it'll make sense when you see it."
Phoenix, Gaga, and Phillips told Variety that the main characters intentionally sing off-key and imperfectly in the movie. And rather than sing along to a pre-recorded track, which is often the case for musicals, Phoenix and Gaga sang live on the set.
"It was important to me that we never perform the songs as one typically does in a musical," Phoenix said. "We didn't want vibrato and perfect notes."
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"Joker" centered on Arthur's descent into villainy after becoming disillusioned by his life as a struggling comedian in Gotham City. At the end of the film, he is locked up in Arkham Asylum and is seen speaking with a social worker.
Plot details surrounding "Joker 2" remain tightly under wraps, but the first trailer shows Arthur and Harley's first meeting at Arkham Asylum. Unlike the comics, though, this version of Harley is a fellow inmate, not Arthur's psychiatrist, at the asylum. After presumably breaking out of the asylum together, the pair are seen dancing and causing mayhem in town.
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According to Variety, the sequel picks up with Arthur in the psych ward, facing the death penalty for his crimes. The movie veers into musical territory after Arthur meets Harleen "Lee" Quinzel, who takes a particular interest in his Joker persona.
Gaga praised Phillips' sequel, describing it as a melting pot of different concepts.
"There's music, there's dance, it's a drama, it's also a courtroom drama, it's a comedy, it's happy, it's sad," she told Variety, adding that the film avoids telling a "traditional story of love."
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The film arrives in theaters this fall.
Imax CEO Richard Gelfond told Business Insider's Jason Guerrasio at CinemaCon that "Joker 2" will also be available to watch in Imax 70mm — a format typically reserved for large-scale movies directed by filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve.
