Joker 2 director makes surprise admission about Arthur Fleck’s true identity

The unexpected ending has generated controversy amongst fans

Todd Phillips, the director of Joker: Folie à Deux, has made a surprising revelation about the true identity of the lead character, played by Joaquin Phoenix.

The sequel to the Oscar-winning 2019 film has failed to replicate that film’s success after being widely panned by critics and generating a lower CinemaScore rating than both Morbius and Madame Web.

The film, which is a musical that also stars Lady Gaga as Dr Harleen Quinzel aka Harley Quinn, has generated controversy amongst fans due to the unexpected ending, with both Phillips and Phoenix have since defended.

Warning: The rest of this article contains spoilers for Joker: Folie à Deux.

At the end of the film, Fleck casts aside his Joker identity and returns to prison. In the final scene, Fleck is told he has a visitor. As he follows the guard down the corridor, another inmate (played by Connor Storrie) approaches him and asks to tell him a joke. He then stabs him repeatedly in the stomach with a shiv.

This inmate is seen carving a smile into his own face in a manner reminiscent of the Joker, while Fleck bleeds to death on the floor.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Phillips said that Fleck was never really the Joker.

The 53-year-old director explained: “When those guards kill that kid in the [hospital] he realises that dressing up in makeup, putting on this thing, it’s not changing anything. In some ways, he’s accepted the fact that he’s always been Arthur Fleck.”

He added: “He’s never been this thing that’s been put upon him, this idea that Gotham people put on him, that he represents. He’s an unwitting icon. This thing was placed on him, and he doesn’t want to live as a fake anymore--he wants to be who he is.”

(Warner Bros Pictures)

The ending of Joker: Folie à Deux has led some to theorise that this was Phillips’s reaction to the first film being accused by left-leaning writers of pandering to incel culture, with one Reddit user calling it “supreme incel ragebait”.

Elsewhere, The Film Stage said the film “pulls a prank on incels”, with one social media user chiming in: “After watching #JokerFolieADeux, I can say that this is exactly what Todd & the cast wanted. An outrage over the movie, because it completely destroys the fantasy that the first movie creates.”

Another post read: “The film is designed to annoy fans of the first film,” with one viewer saying the absence of “murders, explosions and fire” has mad “the joke” on die-hard fans of the original

While people are coming up with wild theories about why the film has flopped, there is a contingent of supporters who believe the film to be a “misunderstood” sequel that’s receiving far too much hate.