The more I read about this movie, the more I’m convinced that Phillips made this to fuck with WB, DC, and capeshit fans, and fleece Hollywood out of millions of dollars in the process.
Phillips refused to coordinate with anyone from DC because he was never making a Batman movie or one that was meant to tie into anything else.
He insisted on shooting entirely in LA despite how expensive it is.
He refused any test screenings and insisted on premiering it at the Venice Film Festival.
Got $20 million paychecks for himself and Phoenix (Gaga got paid $12 mil iirc).
Joker made so much money that a sequel was going to be made, and I can only conclude that either Phillips got too full of himself and got lost in the sauce making a bonkers sequel or he’s just been fucking with everyone who demands more and more Jonkler slop.
The whole thing could also be another weird meta performance art thing that Joaquin Phoenix has done in the past.
The movie is bad but Phoenix’s performance is really good. His cartoon chicken impression is worth $20 million.
I’m saying cause Gaga is the bigger star. Any male talent of her status would be top billing and highest paid.
Considering how dogshit and pretentious the first one was, I really think people are giving him way too much credit with this (basically) conspiracy theory…
Joaquin Phoenix insisted on actually doing this to get into character
Lady Gaga don’t come cheap
Especially since they had her record like an entire album for the movie
I bet the movie might be 10x better if the budget had been 1/10th as much which is ~$20m. Hollywood budgets can be like the F-35 program. Throwing gigantic amounts of money at problems can make the issues worse.
Heard rumor the suits didn’t like how the first one was kinda of radicalizing / people.
I haven’t seen the second one yet. The trailers drfinatrly make it lookmlike a mind fuck, which I’m down for… but I don’t have an opinion good or bad on it yet. If it makes
