Willem Dafoe’s no stranger to playing supervillains. The Nightmare Alley star played the Green Goblin in Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man movie and reprised the role in the MCU’s No Way Home. Dafoe’s now revealed though he’s got an idea for a Joker sequel, and it’s a pretty great pitch.
“There is something interesting about, like, if there was a Joker imposter,” Dafoe told GQ. “So it would be possible to have, not duelling Jokers, but someone that says to be the Joker that isn’t the Joker. And that kind of opens up the possibility of an interesting story, particularly if you had Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, and then you had someone who was either imitating or riffing off what he did.”
It’s an intriguing idea, but don’t expect director Todd Phillips to whip out his pen and start writing a script; Dafoe hasn’t officially pitched the idea to Warner Bros, just fantasised about making the movie. Still, people have been saying that Dafoe, with his terrifying grin, would make a perfect Joker for years now, so who knows, maybe we will get duelling Clown Princes of Crime.
The comics the DCEU are based on recently played with a similar concept. A modern storyline revealed that there were, in fact, three Jokers – each representing a different era of the supervillain’s characterisation – and that’s why Batman’s nemesis seems to reinvent himself constantly.
If we’re honest, The Three Jokers wasn’t particularly well-executed, but maybe Phillips can fine-tune the idea. If that is, he’s interested in making a sequel to his thriller movie. The initial plan for Joker was for it to be a standalone movie; however, its success at the box office and with awards panels muddied that idea.
In May last year, The Hollywood Reporter reported that a Joker sequel had been greenlit with Phillips set to write the script, but there’s been no official news since.
If you’re missing Gotham, be sure to check out our guide on The upcoming action movie The Batman.