We’re coming around on Todd Phillips’ Joker movie, which will star Joaquin Phoenix as a refreshingly straightforward version of the Clown Prince Of Crime in a lower-budget superhero drama that just happens to be about a guy in funny makeup, but let’s not forget that Warner Bros. has some other Joker-centric spin-offs in the works. Specifically, there’s one with Jared Leto reprising his Joker role from Suicide Squad alongside Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, which we originally heard was going to be a “criminal love story” from Bad Santa writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa.
Phillips’ movie is already filming, but it sounds like Ficarra and Requa’s project might be moving along as well. Speaking with Metro, the two writers spoke very highly of the script they’ve turned in, teasing that it all revolves around Joker and Harley trying to solve their relationship problems. Ficarra says their script starts with Harley kidnapping Dr. Phil, who she hopes will able to provide her and Joker with some couples counseling, and they’d like the real Dr. Phil to play himself. They also say that they had a lot of fun writing the script, saying they were “doing a relationship movie” but with the “fucked up, mentally deranged people” of a Bad Santa movie.
Ficarra and Requa don’t know where their script is in the actual filmmaking process yet, but they claim “everybody loved it” and that it might be next on the queue after Joker and Birds Of Prey.