The first Joker 2 trailer looks surprisingly good, but it still won't admit if it's a musical or not
Another film hiding the fact that it's a musical?
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After a long wait, the first trailer for Joker 2, aka Joker: Folie à Deux, is here, and honestly, it doesn't look half bad.
One of the biggest questions surrounding Joker 2 is whether it's a musical or not. Supposedly, it isn't one, but the film's first trailer released yesterday at CinemaCon and I'm having a hard time believing that. In the trailer, we finally get a look at Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn in action, though with the trailer only being a couple of minutes long, it's hard to get a good read on what her performance will be like. Though, the little we do see of her performance is looking good so far, something that isn't exactly surprising for the talented actor.
Director Todd Phillips did appear at CinemaCon to discuss the film, where he shared that the original intention was to only do the one Joker film, but while talking to lead actor Joaquin Phoenix, the two spoke of doing another "because it was so fun and we liked the character of Arthur and Joker so much." Then, the pandemic happened, and the two brought up the idea again, "and now we're here."
In terms of whether the film is a musical or not, Phillips still wouldn't confirm that it outright is one or not. "We’ve never really talked about the movie like that [as a musical]," the director said (via Polygon). "I like to say it’s a movie where music is an essential element. which to me doesn’t differ that far from the first film. When I first described Arthur I explained him as a weird lonely guy but he has music in him."
At minimum, the film is very clearly musical inspired, as there are several shots the feature theatre/ sound stages that resemble scenes out of any classic musical, so for now you'll just have to wait until its October 4 release date to find out if it is or not.