{"id":284866,"date":"2026-01-15T00:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/284866\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T00:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:42:08","slug":"folie-a-deux-was-good-you-guys-are-just-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/284866\/","title":{"rendered":"Folie \u00e0 Deux’ Was Good, You Guys Are Just Mean"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the adage of \u201cnew year, new me\u201d is one that\u2019s often never adhered to by anyone who utters it, the dozens (dozens!) of folks who swear by Todd Phillips\u2019 Joker sequel, Folie \u00e0 Deux<\/a>, are God\u2019s hardest-working soldiers and will shout to the heat death of the universe that the DC Studios film was simply ahead of its time. Unsurprisingly, key among those folks are bigwigs at Warner Bros. who say they love the film despite fans being less than lukewarm with it.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Wrap<\/a>, Warner Bros. CEO Pamela Abdy and chairperson Michael De Luca reminisced over the Joaquin Phoenix-led film. More specifically, their conversation brushed over how the film was a\u00a0<\/a>box-office bomb<\/a> for the pocket-watchers among us and a rotten sequel<\/a>, according to Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>. But as far as the Warner Bros. head honchos are concerned, all that noise ignores what the film truly was: bold and underappreciated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really revisionist,\u201d De Luca told the Wrap. \u201cIt may be that it was too revisionist for a global mainstream audience, but I thought that Todd and his screenwriting partner Scott [Silver] did the thing that most people making sequels don\u2019t do, which is they decided to not repeat themselves. I do give them immense props for not repeating themselves, but it just turned out to not connect with the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abdy echoed De Luca\u2019s sentiments with a bit more cup-half-full retrospective optimism about Folie \u00e0 Deux, adding, \u201cI really liked the movie. I still do.\u201d<\/p>\n

By contrast, Phoenix\u2019s co-star, Lady Gaga<\/a>, seems perfectly content with folks not liking the movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople just sometimes don\u2019t like some things,\u201d Gaga told Elle<\/a>\u00a0in 2025. \u201cIt\u2019s that simple. And I think to be an artist, you have to be willing for people to sometimes not like it. And you keep going even if something didn\u2019t connect in the way that you intended\u2026When [fear of failure] makes its way into your life, that can be hard to get control of. It\u2019s part of the mayhem.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Warner Bros. bosses saying they loved a movie that flopped is giving \u201cWe\u2019ve investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing\u201d levels of a cope, they aren\u2019t the only people who believe that Joker 2, with enough time, will grow on people. Famously, Death Stranding<\/a> developer and noted cinephile Hideo Kojima<\/a> wrote a lengthy review on X<\/a>, saying, \u201cOver the next 10 or 20 years, this film\u2019s reputation will likely change along with the permeation of hero movies to come. It may take some time for it to become a true \u2018folie \u00e0 deux.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Quentin Tarantino took his own praise a step further in a 2024 interview with the Wrap<\/a>, saying that Phillips was the Joker in a cosmic sense, while taking joy in his directing serving as a middle finger to execs and comic book fans\u2019 expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Joker directed the movie,\u201d Tarantino said. \u201cThe entire concept, even him spending the studio\u2019s money\u2014he\u2019s spending it like the Joker would spend it, all right? And then his big surprise gift\u2014haha!\u2014the jack-in-the-box, when he offers you his hand for a handshake and you get a buzzer with 10,000 volts shooting you\u2014is the comic book geeks. He\u2019s saying \u2018fuck you\u2019 to all of them. He\u2019s saying fuck you to the movie audience. He\u2019s saying fuck you to Hollywood. He\u2019s saying fuck you to anybody who owns any stock at DC and Warner Bros\u2026 And Todd Phillips is the Joker. Un film de Joker, all right, is what it is. He is the Joker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sidebar: to everyone who couldn\u2019t help reading the above in Tarantino\u2019s voice, we apologize. As far as where the folks at io9 are concerned, we\u2019re still standing 10 toes down with our review of Folie \u00e0 Deux.<\/a> It just sucked.<\/p>\n

\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the adage of \u201cnew year, new me\u201d is one that\u2019s often never adhered to by anyone who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[1981,18,117,19,17,142988,327,142989,25131],"class_list":{"0":"post-284866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-dc-studios","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-joker-folie-a-deux","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-todd-phillips","16":"tag-warner-bros"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115896342458911327","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}