I wasn’t surprised that Joker turned out to be a bloody great film. After all, months before the film hit cinemas, it won the biggest prize at the Venice International Film Festival. What nobody saw coming, I don’t think, is the film smashing it hard at the box office and becoming the most profitable comic book movie of all time. The film has grossed close to $US 1 billion at the global box office, as of this writing, with a mere $US 55 million budget.
Naturally, the film’s massive success at the box office has made fans wonder if we’re going to be getting a sequel. While director of Joker, Todd Phillips, hasn’t exactly been receptive to the idea of a sequel all this while, he seemed to be slightly more open to it now. In a recent interview with the LA Times, Phillips said that he would consider making a sequel under one condition:
It couldn’t just be this wild and crazy movie about the ‘Clown Prince of Crime. It would have to have some thematic resonance in a similar way that this does. Because I think that’s ultimately why the movie connected, it’s what’s going on underneath. So many movies are about the spark, and this is about the powder. If you could capture that again in a real way, that would be interesting.
I’m a little on the fence about this. On the one hand, the Joker is so brilliant and Joaquin Phoenix is so magnificent in it as the iconic character that I am salivating for more. I want to see the character grow into the supervillain that he’s known to be. And if it stops at that, it’s fine. However, if we were to get more and more sequels, eventually Batman will have to come into the picture. And if so, how do we go about it? Does Warner Bros/DC make Matt Reeves’ The Batman a part of the Joker universe? Is Matt Reeves’ The Batman — which I have no doubt is going to be great — even going to be rated R? Will Todd Phillips and Matt Reeves even agree to this shared universe concept? If not, do we get another Batman altogether?
