The Reel Rejects - COY'S COMIC CORNER: Joker 2 To Star Lady Gaga As HARLEY QUINN & It'll Be A MUSICAL?!

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

MAJOR DCEU NEWS! Can't wait for the Joker 2 Trailer as reportedly, Joker Folie á Deux will feature Lady Gaga (A Star is Born) as Harley Quinn (aka Harleen Quinzel) alongside Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck. Not only that, but it could be a musical?! In this episode of Coy's Comic Corner, Coy Jandreau gives his breakdown, theories on what the plot might be, the Willem Dafoe Joker possibility, the larger part of the DCEU involving Margot Robbie, the HBO Max series, The Batman tie-ins, & more! Plus some juicy Reading Recommendations!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-reel-rejects/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Reject Nation, hello, this has become the Daily Show. I am John Stewart. I am very excited about this being so often and how much you guys have loved this show. We have breaking news, and frankly, this couldn't wait for the other things. But before we get into that, please do like, subscribe, leave comments because Koi's Comic Corner is largely going to be fueled by you. You're like my co-host. Things you want to hear about, I'm going to dive into. I've already got some ideas of future episodes.

So those comments are being perused, enjoyed, and very much appreciated. But today, with the giant news that broke, we're going to be talking. talking about the rumors that are probably true about Lady Gaga joining Joker 2, what that means for the other rumors, the Willem Defoe rumors, how that might tie into the title itself, these are rumors of it being a musical, how Greg called this four months ago, and most of all, what I think this is going to be influenced by with the comic books. Can you tell that Greg sitting immediately my left? That's him giggling. I'm very excited because this to me elevates the sequel idea of what Joker 2 is going to be. We're going to dive into all of that and more.

after these opening credits and we're back i'm so excited for joker two now that we have this big big rumor the combination of it being lady gaga and potentially a musical elevates this whole thing but let's break down what we've seen so far we know the title of this film is joker fili adieu my last name is french unfortunately i am not as per the pronunciation that millions of french people just suffered through i'm so sorry france folie adieu means the madness of two So many of us had assumed that meant the Willem Defoe rumors were in fact true During the no-way home press tour Willam Defoe was very very open about the fact that yes, he knows he looks like the Joker And yes, he knows we have all been fancasting him for quite some time so much so he had it as part of his S&L opening monologue

That to me was locking in the fact we were getting Willem Defoe opposite Joaquin Phoenix because basically the plot of the first Joker movie the the moral foundation it stood on was what is society? What is culture? What does it mean when we live in a world of nihilism where that might be the answer? How does anarchy really differ from a lot of the choices we make when we ignore others in society? Whether you love or hate the Joker movie, it has a lot to say, and I really think the Joker character has a lot to say. So in that same vein, Willem Defoe was seemingly going to be playing a character that followed in the footsteps of the Joker. He followed the lead of the Joker just as the third act of the film seemed to represent. They could have even had Willem Defoe photoshopped into that last bit.

to that last bit. They could have easily started the film with, you know, one of the guys that's in that mob being Willem Defoe. It seemed like a really cut and dry way to do a sequel. And it seemed like an incredible idea. All that being said, this might be an even better idea because it seemingly came out of nowhere, except Greg four months ago. He's going to put a link there. He's going to take the credit. He deserves it. Four months ago, Greg said, hey, there's some Lady Gaga rumors. What if she's Harley Quinn? But we're hearing these rumors about Lady Gaga. When we're looking at who Lady Gaga might be, I'm not opposed to the idea of her actually being Harleen Quinzel in Arkham Asylum.

With this madness of two, it looks to be a love story. Now that we have Lady Gaga, I no longer believe we're getting the Willem DeFoe movie, or it's in conjunction with this, but in a smaller way. It'd be cool to see the idea of the commentary of another Joker as maybe a stepping stone. Maybe you do that beautiful thing where you've got a minor villain leading up to the full story. Maybe you include that idea. Or you play around the idea of Willem DeFoe as someone who's trying to take credit for some of the things that Joaquin has done. Either way, I think if they do involve Willem, it won't be the main crux

of the film anymore. I think this love story between Harley and Joker is the exact right way to go with the sequel about reality and perception. Remember, the first Joker movie had a lot of questions about how much of that was in his head, how much of that was in the asylum. What better type of story to tell than one about love? What clouds our minds more than the psychology of love? What makes us think we're feeling and seeing and experiencing things more than love. He's already in the asylum. He meets Harley Quinn. She's his therapist. We can live in a sequel that's full David Lynchian, that's got shades of Fincher, that plays with all of those tropes in the same way that the first one played in the world of Scorsese. I honestly think when the first one had

those Scorsese parallels, this next one is going to go Lynch and Fincher. I think it's going to be a question of what reality is. I think it's going to be a question of what love makes us do. I think it's going to be a question of how much is from the perception of Joker and how much is it the versions of reality he's telling Harley Quinn, and how long into the story do we start to see it from Harley Quinn's worldview? I could easily see this being a story of Harleen Quinzel going into Harley Quinn, easily this being a story of Harleen Quin giving us a subjective or objective view of the world that then becomes subjective once she's Harley Quinn. I think we're going to see a reality distortion through the journey of this,

and that's when the musical takes off. I think we're going to be in an augmented reality through all these songs and you cast Lady Gaga. You've got someone who is a powerhouse actress, who happens to be one of the great singers of our time, someone who is so good in that Bradley Cooper joint, she was up for an Oscar and hadn't even acted that much. I honestly think this could be the thing that elevates this beyond the first movie's billion dollar budget. I personally thought you shouldn't make a sequel to the first joke. I thought it was a beautiful elseworld that had a young Bruce Wayne keeping it from tying in to the Batman mythology. I thought it was very smart that they consciously showed Wayne Manor.

They consciously had Thomas Wayne as a bit of a prick because you could easily have this be like, oh, he's going to fight Robert Pans and the Batman. No, that would like basically devalue both properties. Instead, you draw a hard line in the sand. You make sure it says in Elseworld, but I thought they could leave it alone. I thought that was kind of the best way to have that

because then DC can start doing Batman by Gaslight. It can start doing Earth 2 Superman. It can start doing these alternate realities. And a sequel kind of makes it seem like we've got this whole other universe they're going to live in. But this, this gives you the opportunity to have the else world feels like it's growing organically. You've got the unreality of the musical. You've got the elevation of a sequel.

You've got the inherent need to make something bigger is undermined by not making it flashier in the cheesy sense, in the action spectacle, but literally flashy in that it's a musical. This is such an inspired move. And it gives us a Harley Quinn we've never seen before. We've got Margo Robbie as DC's main Harley Quinn. She is incredible. She is just as good as Kelly Quoco on the DC animated Harley Quinn, which for my money is maybe one of the best things DC's ever done.

If you haven't seen the Harley Quinn show on HBO Max, it is truly one of the best adaptations without being too serious of a translation from the comic books. What Harley Quinn on HBO Max does is it captures the feeling of the characters in Batman from the perspective of Harley Quinn. Batman is kind of a dick and he's a little horny. It's a weird character. It's not our Batman.

I think the smart play is to do the same thing with Todd Phillips's Joker 2 and have it from the perspective of Harley Quinn again and that keeps you from blending too much in the Margot Robbie world. That keeps you from blending too much into the Batman world. And you've got a fresh new perspective on what she sees Joaquin's successes as or not. We still to this day, after watching Joker,

don't know how much of that was real. How cool is it going to be to have a new perspective on how much of that was real by way of her in a room talking to Joker? One of the most iconic scenes in the Dark Night is the interrogation scene. Give me that again, but with Harley Quinn and have that break into songs. We're not sure how real that is. And that's going to give us a Margot Robbie Harley that can keep going on in the DCEU,

that can grow out to Birds of Prey too, keep going out and having those tie into the now more loose shared universe of DC, which I honestly think is one of their strengths. And then very intentionally having a much more Harleen Quinzel therapist, psychiatrist. I'm not sure which one she is. They change it a lot. They're very different jobs. But the comic books don't pick one. She could either be a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or a therapist.

We're not sure. But I want to see that character leaning into that side of thing. She usually uses her medical background as kind of a punchline in the in the current Margot Robbie universe I want that to be a structure a foundation of this character here. You give me a love story with Joker and Harley That's something we haven't actually seen before There's plenty of fan fix. There's plenty of shots in the Jared Leto swimming around a lot of people made some Very sensationalized YouTube cuts from the David Air footage we saw we haven't actually gotten to live in there We've mainly seen her as a figure of trauma that suffered through the Joker

Let's see them fall in love. Let's see that love cloud both of their judgments. It's not a normal thing to fall so deep in Stockholm syndrome. You start wearing makeup. I want to see that story. We haven't really seen it since Batman the animated series where she was invented. Harley Quinn is one of the few characters that actually started outside of the medium of comic books. She was invented an animated series and was so popular she translated into the comics. She went the other way and now she's in movies. And I think that's a really beautiful thing to do with Joker 2. This is a really special joint. Now before I move into the comic book recommendations, what do you guys think about Lady Gaga being Harley Quinn slash Harley and Quinzel? What

do you think about being a musical and what do you think are going to be the influences on this film since I do think it's going to consciously be separate from the Scorsese joint. The first, let me know in the comments, I really want to know how you guys think this casting choice and this tone choice will affect Joker 2. But before I leave you, comic book recommendations, my favorite part of the show, because I want to get you reading the comics that I love so, so very much. I would highly recommend there's a comic book from Grant Morrison, one of my favorite writers of all time, called Arkham Asylum, Serious House on a Serious Earth.

It is an insane book with some of the most beautiful imagery from McKean that is super surreal and super visceral in the way it makes you experience trauma and insanity and what reality is and I think that's going to be a giant influence on this movie and there's an influence here in the writing I think is going to tie into Joaquin's portrayal and that's the idea of super sanity. He introduces an idea that the Joker is not insane. He's so sane that he's aware of his own identity, his own physical existence, and as being laughable to the point where it almost acknowledges the level of him being in a comic book.

It's not Deadpool, it's not a fourth wall break in the ha-ha sense, it's a, I'm so aware of things, I'm so sane, everyone else is insane around me, and they strongly hint at him knowing he's in a fictional world by way of him being so aware and so intelligent and so sane, this is all madness. I could easily see super sanity being something that ties into Joaquin's, and I think they honestly hinted at it in the first film already. I think that's going to be the biggest basis on this story for Joker 2. So check out Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum, A Serious House on a Serious Earth. I would also recommend for a more fun Joker tale.

There's a great run called War of Jokes and Riddles. It is basically Joker v. Riddler, and it's showing the differences in those characters. And the whole story is basically, Ridler is trying to get Joker to laugh. Joker's forgotten how to laugh. He's lost the joy. Ridler is trying to get the laugh out of the Joker. I could see that being used for Harley. I could see Harley trying to get his approval, trying to seek his attention,

trying to get him to love her by way of making him laugh. I think that's a very loose tie-in to the comic book, but I think that main plot point could be utilized, and it's also just a bitch-in-books from Tom King, one of my favorite Batman writers. Check out War of Jokes and Riddles. Last two I recommend for you lovelies, Brian Azarello's Joker run.

Brian Azarello made a trade paperback slash maxi series. It's not in comics. It's a book by itself. You won't find floppies of it. It's one book. I just called Joker. And it's some of the most stunning imagery of the Joker. It looks a lot like that Heath Ledger Joker,

but it's nauseating to look at. at. It's very grotesque. It's almost a horror book. And it leans into the Joker as his own character. He's not fighting Batman. He's not doing his own thing. And it's how he perceives the world. So the reason the book feels so graphic is you're looking at it from Joker's worldview. And that's a really important distinction for the character. And I'd also recommend the current run of Harley Quinn, where she is just basically trying to be good. She's trying to absolve herself from the things that Joker made her do. And I don't necessarily think we'll get to that point in the character. But a lot of times the comic books do allow a certain

flavor to be interpreted into the movies themselves. So you might get an idea of which Harley Quinn, which taking the character and they might be going with. Plus, the animation's fun. It's got a very ties in the HBO Mac series a good amount with the style of art and things. So Death and the Family, also badass, but I'm going to talk about that in another show,

another episode down the line, but it's very essential for the Joker. And they might reference some Robin stuff in this one, just like they reference Batman in the first. That's going to do it. Daily episodes of Cois Comic Corner. Every time news breaks, I'll be filming these from Boston on my phone.

I feel like it's going to happen. Thank you for being here. Leave a like, leave a comment, subscribe hit that bell again if there's anything you want me to talk about leave a comment below i'm reading all of them just don't be a dick thanks