Todd Phillips Says He’s Done at DC After ‘Joker 2’

It was surprising when Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix made a sequel to their Oscar-winning Joker movie. But don’t expect there to be a trilogy.

Speaking at the Los Angeles premiere for Joker: Folie à Deux to The Hollywood Reporter, Phillips made it pretty clear that a Joker 3 is not coming — at least not from him. Asked whether he had any plans to spin off Lady Gaga’s version of Harley Quinn from Folie à Deux into her own film — as DC Studios did a few years ago when they gave Margot Robbie a Birds of Prey movie to headline after Suicide Squad — Phillips replied, “It’s not really where this movie is headed for me. I feel like my time in the DC Universe was these two films.”

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Phoenix won an Oscar for the first Joker, which was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and grossed over $1 billion, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie in history to that time. Tellingly, Phoenix and Phillips were both open about their interest in making a sequel from the beginning. It was just a matter of figuring out what story to tell and how to tell it. (At one point, Phoenix was reportedly interested in doing a Joker on Broadway.)

Phillips and Phoenix eventually moved away from the idea of a Broadway show — but they maintained the concept of a musical, which became the basis for the second film, and a big reason to bring in Gaga to play the role of Harley Quinn in the film. Whether that’s a gamble that pays off remains to be seen. Early tracking numbers for the sequel predict it will open to significantly smaller box office than the first Joker.

Joker: Folie à Deux opens in theaters this weekend.