When is ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ in cinemas?

4 September, 2024

Joker: Folie à Deux is one of the year’s most highly anticipated releases, but when can fans in the UK see it in cinemas? Read on for all the details.

Todd Phillips’ sequel to his hit 2019 film will see Joaquin Phoenix reprise his role as Arthur Fleck, aka the Joker, alongside Lady Gaga as Harleen “Lee” Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn, Fleck’s partner and sidekick.

The new film takes an unusual departure from its predecessor in that it is a musical, with the most recent preview clip showing Gaga singing a version of ‘Get Happy’, a song from the 1950 Judy Garland film Summer Stock. It is also known that songs such as ‘That’s Life’ and ‘For Once In My Life’ will feature in the film.

Last month, Phillips suggested Folie à Deux will be the final film in his Joker franchise: “It was fun to play in this sort of sandbox for two movies, but I think we’ve said what we wanted to say in this world.”

In a glowing five-star review of 2019’s Joker, NME wrote: “Yup, instant classic. Bold words. Bold proclamation. It is said without fear of plausible recrimination. Todd Phillips isn’t clowning around. This is edge-of-your-seat stuff. This is outstanding.”

When is Joker: Folie à Deux in cinemas?

The film is receiving its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on September 4, while its cinematic release will follow several weeks later.

In the UK, the US, Ireland, Canada and many other territories, the film will arrive in theatres on October 4, five years to the day after the release of its 2019 predecessor. The film will have a 138-minute runtime.

What has its cast had to say about what to expect?

Lady Gaga has given glimpses of the film’s new genre grounding in recent interviews, saying she believes Phillips has taken “a very big swing with this whole concept and with the script”, saying the film has “audacity and complexity”.

“There’s music, there’s dance, it’s a drama, it’s also a courtroom drama, it’s a comedy, it’s happy, it’s sad,” she said. “It’s a testament to [Todd] as a director, that he would rather be creative than just tell a traditional story of love.”

Gaga has said she had to change her singing voice for the film and elaborated why her vocal performances are purposely unpolished.

“We asked ourselves what would need to be true for two people to just break into song in the middle of a conversation?” she said. “Where does the music come from when no one can hear it but the characters? Neither Arthur nor Lee are professional singers, and they shouldn’t sound like they are.”

“I think we all have an intimate and personal relationship with music in that there’s a score for our inner emotional lives. A score that no one can usually hear but us. That’s what we tried to capture for Arthur and Lee. The music inside them.”

She added that “some of the music is fantasy, some of it’s in the scene.” The songs were all performed live accompanied by a piano player who performed off-camera. The process made editing “a nightmare”, according to Philips – during post-production, the takes were spliced together into one seamless number and the actors later re-recorded parts of the songs.

Indeed, Phoenix said last month that Gaga was so impressed by his singing that she spat out her coffee when she heard him.

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