Joker 2 Director Means “no disrespect” But Doesn’t Want You to Liken His DC Thriller With Anthony Ramos’ $45 Million Film That Also Involves Singing and Dancing

Musicals appear to be receiving a lot of interest from the audience lately. Movies like La La Land and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again are some examples of musicals that the audience enjoyed, and with biopics like Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody, the trend has been taken to another level.

Now, director Todd Phillips is coming up with Joker: Folie à Deux to give a musical take to the dark backdrop of Gotham as shown in Joker. However, Phillips is not eager to compare his upcoming movie with any typical musical film.

Todd Phillips Believes Joker: Folie à Deux Is Nothing Like In the Heights

Joaquin Phoenix is returning with his Oscar-winning role, and he will be joined by Lady Gaga. As reported by The Express Tribune, it was Phoenix who proposed that his character Arthur Fleck could express himself through music as he struggles with words.

The idea was stuck in the head of Todd Phillips, and now, after five years of its origin, Joker 2 is all set to release. As fans and critics come up with new comparisons, Phillips avoids any comparison of his movie, especially to the recently released musical, In the Heights. In a conversation with Variety, he said,

I just don’t want people to think that it’s like ‘In the Heights,’ where the lady in the bodega starts to sing and they take it out onto the street, and the police are dancing. No disrespect, because I loved ‘In the Heights.’

According to Phillips, most of the music in Joker 2 is said by Phoenix and Lady Gaga’s characters, and it is not real but rather exists only in their minds.

In the Heights is a Broadway musical, and the Anthony Ramos starter film adaptation was directed by Jon M. Chu. The story was of a love triangle, and the music captured the flavor of Washington Heights, with its Latin, hip-hop, and theater music.

However, unlike that, Joker 2’s music will show the thoughts and battles going on in the heads of Fleck and Lee, as well as their way of communicating. As far as the concept of the movie is concerned, it will not be like In the Heights, where the whole idea revolves around the community, culture, and the big musical performances.

How Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga Approached Joker 2’s Offbeat Music

It was quite known that creating the music for Joker: Folie à Deux was never going to be straightforward. As far as the lead actors are concerned, there is no need to describe Lady Gaga’s musical abilities, and Phoenix seemed to have quite a nice voice when he performed as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line.

However, Joker 2 required an entirely new strategy. Its music was never intended to be musically correct. Rather, it was supposed to create an emotion that is unstable, often euphoric and sometimes dark. In the interview with Variety, Phoenix explained,

It was important to me that we never perform the songs as one typically does in a musical. We didn’t want vibrato and perfect notes.

Gaga also added to Phoenix’s thoughts, saying that as both of their characters are non-singers, they shouldn’t sound like one. To maintain that, they deliberately sang out of the key sometimes.

Moreover, it is quite common in typical musicals where actors lip sync over pre-recorded tracks. But in Joker 2, both Phoenix and Gaga performed everything live while they were filming. They were only helped by a live pianist who was playing off-camera.

This was necessary to keep the authenticity of the scenes and the characters, but it became a “nightmare” for Phillips to edit and sync the tracks with their performance as the takes were done in different tempos. However, with the amount of work they have put in, fans will be expecting to see a new take on musicals.

Joker: Folie à Deux will be released in theaters on October 4, 2024.