Though there was a lot of hype surrounding the release of Joker: Folie a Deux, the film was met with a mostly negative reaction, and was said to have done so poorly in the box office that it lost WB Pictures millions. Admittedly there were some (myself included) who thought that the movie was actually pretty good; just a tad artsy for more mainstream films. Nevertheless, the movie was immediately released on digital three weeks later—ending any more possibility for the film to earn money at the box office.
What’s funny is, with more being able to access the movie now, more positive reactions are starting to come out from casual movie goers; and the Folie a Deux managed to get the endorsement of one major filmmaker—Quentin Tarantino.
Talking to the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast (via World of Reel) Tarantino talks about how he actually loved the movie and how Todd Phillips was an absolute madman for being able to pull the film off. Tarantino said, “I really, really liked it, really. A lot. Like, tremendously, and I went to see it expecting to be impressed by the filmmaking. But I thought it was going to be an arms-length, intellectual exercise that ultimately I wouldn’t think worked like a movie, but that I would appreciate it for what it is… And I didn’t find it an intellectual exercise. I really got caught up into it.”
Tarantino even likened the movie’s Joker and Harley to his own characters Mickey and Mallory from Natural Born Killers, and thought the film was a kind of homage to his work the same way that the first Joker was an homage to Martin Scorsese’s earlier films.
If anything, Tarantino thought that the film was very meta in that Phillips himself may have been the Joker, being able to pull the rug from under the audience and the studio. He continues:
“Todd Phillips is the Joker. The Joker directed the movie. The entire concept, even him spending the studio’s money — he’s spending it like the Joker would spend it, all right? And then his big surprise gift — haha! — the the jack in the box, when he offers you his hand for a handshake and you get a buzzer with 10,000 volts shooting you — is the comic book geeks. He’s saying f— you to all of them. He’s saying f— you to the movie audience. He’s saying f— you to Hollywood. He’s saying f— you to anybody who owns any stock at DC and Warner Brothers […] And Todd Phillips is the Joker. Un film de Joker, all right, is what it is. He is the Joker.”
Joker: Folie a Deux is now available on digital.
