The first trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux is here, featuring the return of Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck/Joker and introducing Lady Gaga’s version of Harley Quinn.
The highly anticipated first trailer dropped on Tuesday after Warner Bros.’ CinemaCon presentation in Las Vegas. It’s a decent look at Folie à Deux, giving us our first glimpse at what it may tackle.
A large part of the focus, of course, is on Arthur, but the trailer – and WB’s own tagline, “he’s not alone anymore” – makes a point to highlight how this’ll be Harley’s story, too. It seems to confirm a massive shift in Harley Quinn’s origin story as well, as it appears to show her as a patient in Arkham Asylum rather than as a psychiatrist. Long gone, it seems, are the days of Dr. Harleen Quinzel.
The trailer almost immediately hints at the musical aspect of the sequel too, even if director Todd Phillips clarified at the panel that it’s not a full musical, but rather that music is an “essential element.” A voiceover that sounds to be Phoenix’s says in the trailer, “we use music to make us whole, to balance the fractures within ourselves.”
After that, we hear Gaga’s Harley for the first time: “I’m nobody,” she laments. “I haven’t done anything in my life like you have.” We can also see Harley and Arthur locking eyes in the asylum, as Harley mimes shooting herself.
It then shows a look at Arthur and Harley’s relationship, as the trailer sees them engaged in a dance on a rooftop. We see the trailer veer from what could be romantic delusions – the two intertwined, bathed in moody lighting – to what looks to be a grimmer reality, with Arthur in a police car in one shot and Harley ascending courtroom steps, in full costume, in another.
The trailer tracks with previous marketing of the film, most of which focuses on Arthur and Harley in a romantic framing. The poster and first looks at Joker: Folie à Deux have all either seen them in dance, or otherwise closely intertwined with each other.
WB and Phillips have largely kept plot details under wraps, but we can glean some hints from its title. Per the National Library of Medicine, Folie à Deux refers to “an identical or similar mental disorder affecting two or more individuals,” which could be very much in line with the Joker and Harley Quinn’s dysfunctional relationship.
Joker: Folie à Deux will hit theaters on October 4, 2024. IGN gave 2019’s Joker a 10/10, writing, “Joaquin Phoenix’s fully committed performance and Todd Phillips’ masterful albeit loose reinvention of the DC source material make Joker a film that should leave comic book fans and non-fans alike disturbed and moved in all the right ways.”
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
