Joker 2 opens with a Looney Tunes-inspired animated sequence
Joker 2, aka Joker: Folie à Deux, will open with a Looney Tunes-esque animated sequence, it has been revealed.
In a lengthy Variety profile piece on the DC duology's director Todd Phillips, it was explained that the Joker will feature in a cartoon from Sylvain Chomet, the director of Oscar-nominated 2003 classic The Triplets of Belleville.
It's only the intro that's animated, but we've known for a while now that the film takes another stylistic turn: it's got a lot of musical sequences.
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Phillips explained the thinking behind this, stating: "The goal of this movie is to make it feel like it was made by crazy people. The inmates are running the asylum."
While the film has a lot of DNA from the musicals in it, Phillips is hesitant to call the film a full-blown musical, explaining: "Most of the music in the movie is really just dialogue. It's just Arthur not having the words to say what he wants to say, so he sings them instead.
"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."
"It was important to me that we never perform the songs as one typically does in a musical," Arthur Fleck actor Joaquin Phoenix added. "We didn't want vibrato and perfect notes."
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Lady Gaga, who plays Harley Quinn, further explained: "We asked ourselves what would need to be true for two people to just break into song in the middle of a conversation? Where does the music come from when no one can hear it but the characters?
"Neither Arthur [Fleck/Joker] nor Lee [Harley Quinn] are professional singers, and they shouldn't sound like they are."
As well as not being afraid to go off-key as they sang live during the film, the actors were also encouraged to mix up the rhythm and tempo of their musical numbers. The downside to that, as Phillips noted, was that it made the editing process a "nightmare".
Folie à Deux is scheduled for a cinema release date of October 4. Joker is available to buy on Blu-ray or streaming now.
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