THR Reveals ‘Joker: Folie à Deux' Idea Came to Joaquin Phoenix “in A Dream"

I’m trying hard not to further tackle the disaster that is “Joker: Folie à Deux.” Hopefully, this is the last time I write about it this week, but reports keep coming in about the film and they’re too good not to write about.

THR has published an in-depth analysis of what went wrong with ‘Folie à Deux.’ They don’t really come to any one conclusion, but believe it was the accumulation of a bunch of misbegotten creative decisions that derailed the film.

Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix both nabbed $20M paydays. Lady Gaga received $12M for her supporting turn. Unsurprisingly,  Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy — the co-heads of Warner Bros. Pictures — are said to be “reeling” about the $37.8M opening weekend. Phillips has gone into hiding, "[spending] the weekend in seclusion on a ranch property he owns."

One source, who calls the failure “[a] complete audience rejection,” blames Todd Phillips. As the trade explains, he was "given an extraordinary level of autonomy and final cut." This led to no test screenings, despite a world premiere at Venice which led to spoilers and toxic reactions leaking all over the internet.

However, what most of the media has caught on to is how the idea of turning ‘Joker 2’ into a musical came to be. It turns out that it was Phoenix who came up with the idea for the sequel which came to him “in a dream, and he and Phillips brought this idea to former Warners chairman Toby Emmerich, according to sources."

After one insider was asked who the movie was made for, they responded with two words: "For Joaquin."

Then there’s today’s Variety report, again heavily sourced with Warners talking points, that paints Phillips as a director who went rogue during filming on the sequel. Phillips, they claim, wanted “nothing to do with DC” during the making of ‘Folie à Deux.’ The filmmaker refused to take any communication from James Gunn and would only liaise with WB heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy about the film.

The blame game will likely continue in the coming days, but it sure looks like a narrative is building to throw Phillips and Phoenix under the bus for this one. Then again, they weren’t the ones who had final say in greenlighting the project, so maybe we should be looking elsewhere to point our fingers at.