Summary
- Joker was a successful and controversial movie that won numerous awards and made over $1 billion at the box office, despite its relatively low budget.
- The sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, is currently in post-production and is expected to be surprising and successful like its predecessor.
- The release date for Joker 2 is set for October 4, 2024, during awards season, indicating that Warner Bros. has faith in the sequel's quality and potential for recognition.
Joker told the origin story of the Clown Prince of Crime, and it was so successful that the standalone movie is now getting a sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux. The 2019 movie follows Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a clown-for-hire who has a dream of becoming a great stand-up comedian. Arthur is constantly bullied and gets the short end of the stick when it comes to Gotham's economy, leading him down a murderous path that influences a whole movement and transforms him into the Clown Prince of Crime by the time of the Joker movie ending.
Despite Joker being a controversial movie for its divisive exploration of the topic of mental health, it was also a huge award winner. Phoenix won the Academy Award for Best Actor and Hildur Guðnadóttir won for Best Original Score. This is on top of the movie making $1 billion at the worldwide box office (via Box Office Mojo) on a budget of just $55 million. With the star-studded Joker: Folie à Deux cast – and some other exciting reveals that have been released about the movie along the way – it seems Warner Bros. could easily repeat that success.