Warner is Reportedly Backing a Truck Full of Cash Up To Joaquin Phoenix’s House For More ‘Joker’ Movies

I thought Joker was going to suck when it was announced, but I was happy to be wrong. Not only was it a great movie, but the unfounded hysteria around it was also basically unmatched until Netflix added Cuties to its library. It was a good time watching news outlets breathlessly await a mass shooting caused by Joker that never came, especially when the only movie theater violence to happen around the time occurred during a screening of Frozen 2.

Not only was Joker a great movie, but it was also a big success for Warner, a relative rarity among recent DC films. This thing definitely made the studio more money than Birds of Prey. So obviously Warner wants to make sequels because they didn’t learn the lesson that the entire world should have learned from The Godfather Part III.

In fact, The Mirror reports an insider tells them that the movie sequels are further along in development than we would have hoped.

An insider tells me: “Joaquin initially felt Joker was a standalone movie.

“But he’s changed his tune now. He says he wants to play this character again, despite the controversies that came with the release last year.

“It’s still being negotiated but the scripts are being written and Joaquin is very engaged with it.”

My source says makers Warner Bros were “as shocked as anyone” by the film’s success last year.

They add: “They plan to make two sequels in the next four years, with a long-term commitment to Joaquin and his Joker director Todd Phillips and producer Bradley Cooper. It’s all about getting Joaquin to accept the terms – and the biggest payday of his career by far.”

Okay, Warner Brothers, I’m going to give you some free advice: don’t make more Joker movies with Joaquin Phoenix. That’s not how you follow up Joker.

I will tell you the right way to follow up Joker with movies that will make money that people will actually like; you make movies about other villains in the same way. You don’t make Joker 2: Joke Harder, you make Luthor.

Find yourself another actor of Phoenix’s caliber and have him play Lex Luthor, the beloved businessman, and genius scientist, like who Elon Musk thinks he is but actually isn’t, and you show how Superman appearing and becoming the hero Luthor he was pushes him over the edge.

You really still want to make Joker 3: Joker in Space after that? How about you make Professor Zoom instead. There’s can even be a time theme to connect the films, Joker in the past, Luthor in the present day and Professor Zoom in the future, relative to the heroes they menace. The Flash’s biggest fan gains super speed just like Barry Allen and tries to become the new Flash, but when no one cares, he decides he’ll kill Flash before he became a legendary hero instead and take all the glory for himself.

There are a lot of great, tragic origins for DC villains to explore and no more story to be told about this Joker without Batman involved. I get it, we could show how he becomes a crime lord in like a DC Comics Scarface or Godfather II, but it isn’t really as compelling to me as new movies about new villains are.