The Joker Sequel Opens With a Wild, Fully Animated Looney Tunes Homage

Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux will not open with a big dramatic sequence like the first movie, or even a song and dance number like the trailers have suggested. Instead, the sequel opens with an animated Joker cartoon, setting the tone for the wild ride ahead. Following the massive box office success of 2019’s Joker, which earned 11 Academy Award nominations, including a Best Actor win for Joaquin Phoenix, expectations are high for the sequel. Joker was praised for being different from other comic book adaptations, and it looks like Joker: Folie à Deux wants to shock audiences again with an opening sequence they likely aren’t expecting.

Todd Phillips spoke with Variety about the upcoming DC sequel and revealed that Joker: Folie à Deux has a drastically different opening than the previous film. The film apparently kicks off with an animated sequence drawn by Sylvain Chomet, French comic writer and director of the Oscar-nominated 2003 animated feature The Triplets of Belleville. This sequence seems important for setting the tone of the movie, which features a montage of prison riots, courtrooms, and musical sequences. Regarding this opening and the tone of the film, Phillips said:

“The goal of this movie is to make it feel like it was made by crazy people. The inmates are running the asylum.”

Though the idea of Joker: Folie à Deux opening with an animated sequence sounds novel, this isn’t the first DC superhero movie based on a Batman villain to do so. 2020’s Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) opens with an animated sequence recounting the character’s origin before the movie starts. The opening of Birds of Prey was done by Hayk Manukyan, who had worked on other DC animated projects like Teen Titans Go! and the feature film Teen Titans Go! To the Movies. While not the opening scene, last year’s The Marvels (made by DC competitor Marvel) featured an animated scene early on inspired by Kamala Khan’s drawings, featuring her and Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel teaming up.

Commissioning a Looney Tunes-inspired opening for Joker: Folie à Deux shows that Phillips has more appreciation for the Looney Tunes as a concept than Warner Bros. Discovery, the studio that owns both DC Comics and Looney Tunes. Warner Bros. canceled the completed Coyote vs. Acme movie for a tax write-off and rejected various other studios’ offers to buy the film. Meanwhile, WB sold the distribution rights to the first fully 2D-animated Looney Tunes feature film, The Day the Earth Blew Up, to Ketchup Entertainment. The idea that a Warner Bros. Discovery movie will pay homage to Looney Tunes while the actual studio seems embarrassed by the property is certainly confusing, but Phillips does not represent Warner Bros. Discovery; he’s just an individual who seems to value the Looney Tunes legacy more than the people running the studio.