What if Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix Jokerfied every movie?

Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips joked onset about putting the Joker in everything from Rosemary’s Baby to The Godfather to space

By Emma Keates | July 29, 2024 | 1:12pm

Screenshot: Warner Bros. Pictures/YouTube

Film News Joker: Folie à Deux

What if Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix Jokerfied every movie?

Hold on to your red lipstick, people: we’re approaching peak Jokerfication. At least, we really hope we are; we can’t be expected to exist in any more of a society than our current whatever-the-hell-is-going-on. First, they went and Jokerfied The Crow. Then they Jokerfied Frankenstein’s monster. Earlier this year, Vera Drew Jokerfied parody films with The People’s Joker and in October, Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga will finally Jokerfy the jukebox musical with their hotly anticipated Joker: Folie À Deux. That’s a full clown car’s worth of Jokers; not even Bruce Wayne could contend with them all. We should consider ourselves lucky, though; according to a new Empire cover story excerpt, Phoenix and Joker director Todd Phillips accidentally created a bunch of alternate universes where even more Jokers exist—including one that would have to fight the Joker in space.

“Joaquin and I talked about another one the whole time while we were making [2019’s Joker], just because we love the character,” Phillips told the outlet. “We were obsessed with Arthur. We would almost joke about it: ‘Oh, we should take Arthur and we should do this.”

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“I had a curiosity about going further with the character… it felt like you could put him into almost any situation, and I would be interested to see how he would navigate it,” Phoenix added. “I mocked up all of these posters of films that have already been made, like Rosemary’s Baby and Godfather, and I put Joker in them and I gave them to Todd… There was a running joke of, ‘What about Joker in space?’” (This writer would argue that Doctor Who sort of already has that one in the bag with The Master, but we digress.) “But yeah, I was fascinated by where he would end up,” Phoenix added.

With all of this, ahem, joking in mind, the decision to actually go for Joker: The Musical isn’t all that surprising. “This is not a lay-up sequel,” said Phillips. “And that makes it really exciting for us.” Depending on the success of Folie Á Deux, it will be interesting to see which genres Arthur Fleck dances into next; maybe he’ll find his folk in the wake of Timothée Chalamet’s Bob Dylan movie, move to a small town and discover the true meaning of Christmas, or start a new career in Vegas hustling people at cards. Selfishly, we’re kind of hoping for that last one—“They’ve gone and Jokerfied jokers” would be such a fun headline.