Joker 2"s Biggest Challenge Was Created By Joker"s Twist Ending

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Joker’s ending twist elevated the movie, yet it created an almost impossible challenge for Joker: Folie à Deux. The ending of Joker (2019) reveals that a lot of what happened to and around Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), including most of his interactions with Sophie (Zazie Beetz), was a figment of his imagination. Joker’s unreliable narrator reveal changes every scene that came before it and makes a rewatch of the film a lot more interesting. However, now that Joker 2 is happening, not everything that worked in the first film will necessarily work in the sequel.
While Joker works perfectly as a self-contained movie, the fact that a Joker sequel is happening is hardly a surprise. Joker (2019) broke the billion-dollar barrier at the worldwide box office and is currently the highest-grossing R-Rated movie of all time. In addition, Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar-winning performance as the Joker was just too good not to be revisited in some form. Phoenix’s Joker will be joined by Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn in Joker 2, raising the question of from whose perspective the sequel will be told.
Joker's Unreliable Narrator Twist Won't Work Twice

Joker’s unreliable narrator twist was a fitting conclusion for the movie. Not only it invited audiences to rethink everything they had seen throughout the film up until that point, but it also created a sense of mystery regarding Joker’s ending. If Arthur Fleck was not a reliable narrator, the ending of Joker could now be interpreted in many different ways. As a self-contained Joker movie without any connections to the DC Universe, Joker needed something special for the film to be remembered for years to come. The unreliable narrator twist added to Joker’s open ending succeeded in this mission, but such a combination cannot be replicated.