Musical Sequel to JOKER, Reportedly Starring Lady Gaga, Gets Release Date

The musical sequel to the billion-dollar smash Joker has gotten a release date! According to Variety, Joker: Folie à Deux will hit movie theaters on October 4, 2024.

Joker star Joaquin Phoenix has signed on to return to the role which earned him a 2019 Academy Award for Best Actor. Oscar-nominated director Todd Phillips will also return, directing a screenplay he co-wrote with Scott Silver.

As BroadwayWorld previously reported Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Award-winner Lady Gaga was in talks to join the film's cast as recently as June. According to Variety, the star is "expected" to portray Joker's villainous sidekick, Harley Quinn.

In the Batman canon, Quinn begins her journey as Dr. Harleen Quinzel, an Arkham Asylum therapist who falls in love with Joker and joins him as his oft-abused love interest and villainous sidekick. Todd Phillips' original 2019 film left the film's central character, Arthur Fleck/Joker in the care Arkham State Hospital.

The sequel's subtitle Folie à deux, is a term referencing mental illness affecting two or more persons.

Director Todd Phillips "Joker" centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips' exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham's fractured society.

A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night...but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty, Arthur makes one bad decision that brings about a series of escalating events in this gritty character study.

The film stars Academy Award-winner Joaquin Phoenix alongside Oscar winner Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Marc Maron, Bill Camp, Glenn Fleshler, Shea Whigham, Brett Cullen, Douglas Hodge and Josh Pais. Joker was released in theaters nationwide October 4, 2019.

About Lady Gaga:

Lady Gaga has amassed an extraordinary 31 million global album sales and 171 million single sales, making her one of the best-selling musicians of all-time. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in 2018's "A Star is Born". She won Academy and Golden Globe Awards for co-writing the hit song, "Shallow" from A Star Is Born.

Gaga is one of the biggest living forces in social media with more than 59 million likes on Facebook, over 72 million followers on Twitter and more than 31 million followers on Instagram. Her fifth studio album, Joanne, was released in October 2016 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200, marking her fourth consecutive No. 1 album - the first female to do so in the last seven years. Lady Gaga has also seen incredible touring success with Live Nation producing and promoting all of her tours since The Monster Ball tour (2009-2011), which was the highest-grossing tour for a debut artist in history. Since then, she's also entertained fans with her Born This Way Ball tour (2012-2013); the 2014 ArtRave: The ARTPOP Ball tour, and her 2015 tour collaboration with Tony Bennett.