While the saying “new year, new me” is one that is often not followed by whoever utters it, dozens (dozens!) of people swear by Todd Phillips’ Joker link, Folie à Deux, are God’s hardest working soldiers and will scream the death heat of the universe that the DC Studios film is just ahead of its time. Not surprisingly, the key to those people are the bosses of Warner Bros. saying that they like the film even though the fans are not so warm to it.

In an interview with the WrapWarner Bros. CEO Pamela Abdy and chairperson Michael De Luca remember the Joaquin Phoenix-led film. More specifically, their conversation focused on how to film a box-office bomb for the pocket-watchers among us and rotten sequelaccording to rotten tomatoes. But as far as the head honchos of Warner Bros.

“It’s really revisionist,” De Luca told the Wrap. “Maybe it’s too revisionist for a global mainstream audience, but I think Todd and his screenwriting partner Scott (Silver) did something that most people who make sequels don’t, which is they decided not to repeat themselves.

Abdy echoes De Luca’s sentiments with a slightly more half-hearted retrospective about Folie à Deuxadded, “I really liked the movie. I still do.”

In contrast, Phoenix’s co-star, Lady Gagaseems perfectly content with people who don’t like the movie.

“People sometimes don’t like certain things,” Gaga said Ella in 2025. “It’s simple. And I think to be an artist, you have to be ready for people who sometimes don’t like it. And you continue even if something doesn’t connect the way you intended… When the (fear of failure) comes into your life, it’s hard to control. It’s part of the chaos.”

While Warner Bros. bosses say they want a film that flops to provide a “We checked ourselves and found nothing wrong” level of coping, they’re not the only people who believe that. Joker 2with enough time, people will grow. famous, Death Stranding developer and noted cinephile Hideo Kojima wrote a long review in Xsaying, “In the next 10 or 20 years, the reputation of this film is likely to change with the proliferation of superhero movies to come. It may take some time for it to become a true ‘folie à deux.'”

Quentin Tarantino took his own praise one step at a time 2024 interview with the Wrapsaying that Phillips is the Joker in a cosmic sense, while reveling in his directing that serves as a middle finger to the expectations of executives and comic book fans.

“The Joker directed the movie,” Tarantino said. “The whole concept, even him spending the studio money—he spent it like he spent the Joker, okay? And then his big surprise gift—haha!—the jack-in-the-box, when he offers you his hand to shake and you get a buzzer with 10,000 volts that shoots you—are comic book geeks. He says ‘fuck you’ to all of them. He says fuck you to the movie audience. He says fuck you in Hollywood. He tells you anyone who owns any stock in DC and Warner Bros… And Todd Phillips is the Joker. Un film de Joker, all right, that’s it. He is the Joker.”

Sidebar: to everyone who can’t resist reading above in Tarantino’s voice, we apologize. As far as the folks at io9 are concerned, we still stand 10 fingers apart let’s review the Folie à Deux. Just sucked it up.

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