The DC spinoff sequel co-starring Phoenix and Lady Gaga is now in theaters.
The choices made at the end of Joker: Folie à Deux are arguably the biggest reasons why the film has been so polarizing. While some find them interesting and insightful, many others find them maddening and subversive. Two people who do like the ending, though, are the film’s co-writer and director Todd Phillips and its star Joaquin Phoenix, and in a new interview, the pair spoke in detail about the ending.
Speaking to IGN, Phillips and Phoenix discussed Arthur’s choice to leave behind Joker—along with the fact that he dies, and the person who kills him. Let’s start with the idea of what these movies have been about in a larger sense which, as you’ll read, speaks to the person who kills Arthur at the end of the film.
“One of the things that people never understood about the first movie was, ‘I don’t get it. He visits Bruce Wayne and he’s 30 years older than Bruce Wayne. What kind of geriatric Joker is going to fight in the future?’” Phillips said. “I don’t know if you’ve ever saw the script of the first movie.
