Todd Phillips calls Joker sequel reports "anticipatory at best," clarifies there's "not a contract"

“I can honestly say to you there was no meeting that ever happened on October 7 where I marched in,” Phillips told Indiewire. “Here’s the real truth about a sequel. While Joaquin and I have talked about it, and while touring the world with Warner Bros executives—going to Toronto, and Venice, and other places—of course, we’re sitting at dinner and they’re saying, ‘So, have you thought about…?’ But, talking about contracts, there’s not a contract for us to even write a sequel, we’ve never approached Joaquin to be in a sequel.”

Phillips goes on to call some of the reporting in the THR article “untrue.” The concept of developing a series of gritty reboots, for example, was something he says he pitched early in Joker’s development, not after the film became a box office smash. “When I pitched them Joker, it wasn’t a movie, it was, let’s do a whole label,” Phillips said. “They shut that down quickly and I get it. Who am I to walk in and start a label at a film studio? But they said, let’s do this one.” He adds, “I’m not the kind of guy who goes marching in saying I want these 40 titles. I just don’t have the energy.”

He doesn’t negate the idea of a sequel. He says he and Phoenix have discussed the idea and that, when it comes to business, “a movie doesn’t make a billion dollars and they don’t talk about a sequel.”

So, basically, it’s going to happen. Eventually. But we can put the arguments on hold for now.