Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie à Deux features a background character who gets the spotlight in a pretty shocking manner towards the end of the movie, and actor Connor Storrie has now spoken about his role for the first time.
If you haven't seen the movie yet, major spoilers follow.
At the end of the highly divisive sequel, Arthur Fleck meets a violent when he's killed by another Arkham inmate (Storrie) after first taking responsibility for the crimes he committed in the original film by renouncing his "Joker" persona and confessing during his trial.
The unnamed individual - who we are supposed to view as the real Joker - stops Fleck to tell him a joke, delivering a killer punchline with repeated stabs to the abdomen. As Arthur bleeds out, we see the inmate carve a Glasgow smile onto his face in the background, indicating that he will ultimately become Batman's nemesis.
While chatting to TMZ, Storrie revealed that he's not at all surprised that so many people had a negative response to the ending, and spoke about the chances of him returning as The Joker in another movie.
“It felt very clear that this is Joaquin’s movie. It’s following Arthur. I saw my place in that. It’s not like, ‘Hey this is where I am going. This is who I am.’ It is a part of Arthur’s story more than it is becoming anything else after that. That was very clear.”
“It was polarizing before the movie even came out, which I think is a good thing,” he added. “When it was announced that it was a musical people from the jump were like, ‘What?’ I was like that, too. What does that even mean or look like? Especially because the first one was so raw and grimy. It was polarizing before it was even seen. The reaction makes sense. I can’t speak for anyone like Todd but they knew that was the case, too. You don’t make such a big swing like that without knowing it gives people the opportunity to not get behind your choices.”
Unfortunately for Phillips and the studio, it was a swing and a miss. Joker 2 has had a pretty disastrous run at the box office, taking in just $1.3 million in U.S. theatres on Wednesday. We might be looking at one of the biggest second-weekend drops in quite some time.
From acclaimed writer/director/producer Todd Phillips comes Joker: Folie À Deux, the much-anticipated follow-up to 2019’s Academy Award-winning Joker, which earned more than $1 billion at the global box office and remains the (second) highest-grossing R-rated film of all time.
The new film stars Joaquin Phoenix once again in his Oscar-winning dual role as Arthur Fleck/Joker, opposite Oscar winner Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born). The film also stars Oscar nominees Brendan Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Catherine Keener (Get Out, Capote), alongside Zazie Beetz, reprising her role from Joker.
The movie is rated R for “some strong violence, language throughout, some sexuality, and brief full nudity.”
Do you plan on seeing the Joker sequel in theaters, or have the reviews put you off? Let us know in the comments section down below.