Lady Gaga (As Harley Quinn?) Brings Real Star Power To A ‘Joker’ Sequel

We got word via The Hollywood Reporter last night that Lady Gaga may be joining the cast of Todd Phillips and Scott Silver’s Joker: Folie à Deux. We don’t know for sure if Warner Bros. will close the deal, or if Gaga would be playing Harley Quinn, but let’s presume both. This is what we call “added value element.” Lady Gaga is herself a butts-in-seats movie star, as shown both by Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born (the arguable centerpiece of Warner Bros.’ banner 2018 slate which earned $424 million on a $40 million budget) and Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci (a 2.5-hour true crime melodrama which earned $75 million domestic and $151 million worldwide in late 2021 as every other adult-skewing drama dropped dead theatrically). The hook of Lady Gaga “as” Harley Quinn in a Joker sequel makes this film an event unto itself.

But there’s more. Do I care about a straight-up sequel to Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, a three-star film I enjoyed as a well-acted, visually scrumptious imitation of old-school 1970’s character studies? Nope, and honestly even Lady Gaga as Quinn in a straight drama is of little interest, even though she would have been a commercial boon regardless. But telling me that Joker: Folie à Deux is going to (possibly) star Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn in an R-rated DC Comics musical? Okay, now I want to see the movie. This kind of comparatively outside the box thinking, using one of the biggest stars in the planet, someone who can bring people to theaters, playing a popular marquee character which somewhat resembles her offscreen persona, in the first big-budget superhero-ish comic book musical, is how you pull in folks who otherwise wouldn’t care about a Joker sequel.

A Joker sequel was both inevitable (when a $65 million comic book flick earns $1.073 billion worldwide, it gets a sequel) and likely to earn much less than its predecessor. Still, a drop on par with The Secret Life of Pets 2 ($430 million in 2019 versus $875 million in 2016) would give Joker 2 a $527 million global cume, on par with Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($505 million) and closer to what we all expected from Joker in 2019. A plunge akin to Alice Through the Looking Glass ($299 million in 2016 versus $1.025 billion for Alice in Wonderland in 2010) would give Joker 2 $313 million, 4x a theoretical $80 million budget. However, the addition of Lady Gaga *as* Harley Quinn in a musical (prior to Covid, live-action musicals featuring were a safe theatrical bet, Cats aside) makes that higher total more likely.

Joker hit theaters in October of 2019 in a storm of (then and now) ridiculous controversy. The film’s Venice debut led to rave reviews, a Golden Lion and a wave of frankly irresponsible fearmongering arguing that the drama was going to inspire a wave of copycat violence and possibly in-theater carnage. Movies rarely inspire violence (looking at you, Judd Apatow, Mark Ruffalo and others who damn well should know better), and even incidents that were initially thought to be inspired by Magnum Force, Money Train, The Matrix or The Dark Knight Rises were eventually revealed to be unrelated or coincidental. There were next to no incidents of even minor misbehavior traced back to Joker in North America, instead the movie opened to $96 million and legged out to $334 million domestic and (without China) $1.073 billion worldwide, essentially tied with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Joker obviously clicked for audiences, and the delays of No Time to Die, Wonder Woman 1984 and Sonic the Hedgehog left Joker as almost the only game in town (especially after Terminator: Dark Fate and Charlie’s Angels bombed) between itself and Frozen II in mid-November. One reason for its success was that it was, for October and much of November, the franchise/event movie tentpole, the seasonal horror film and the commercially friendly awards season flick all wrapped up into one. Think Gravity in 2013. Moreover, to many (but not all) moviegoers raised on a diet of mostly franchise films (the MCU, Harry Potter, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc.), Joker was either a breath of fresh air or something unlike anything they had ever seen in theaters. Joker 2 won’t have those advantages, but now it does have Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn in a DC musical.

Phillips was a producer on A Star Is Born, and this sequel may just borrow that film’s plot (past his prime celebrity takes a newbie under his wing and watches her surpass him). I’ve often said that an effective way to make a solid kid’s flick is to just remake an acclaimed grown-up film (Peter Rabbit = Rushmore, Pete’s Dragon = Mama, etc.). Joker: Folie à Deux probably won’t explicitly be kid-friendly, but I digress. Anyway, this now becomes a much bigger and more high-profile film, and the choices imply that Phillips and friends are smart enough to know that just making a regular Joker sequel won’t cut it. As for Margot Robbie, she’s booked and busy and doesn’t need Harley Quinn any more than Henry Cavill needs Superman. Besides, maybe if you had shown up for Cathy Yan’s terrific Birds of Prey in early 2020…