The trans film-maker who remade Batman: ‘There’s a reason all the heroes are queer, mentally ill villains’
Vera Drew’s award-winning new film imagines Batman as a boy-grooming baddie and the Joker as a transgender clown – a hectic riposte to the idea that woke killed the joke
Writer-director shows support for critically maligned and commercially disastrous musical follow-up to 2019 hit
Tell us: what are your thoughts on Joker: Folie à Deux?
We would like to hear your reactions to the musical sequel to 2019’s Joker
Joker: Folie à Deux flops further in second week at US box office after lacklustre opening
Panned sequel to Oscar-winning hit makes just $7m domestically in second weekend, an 81% drop that places it among the steepest ever recorded
September 2024
Lady Gaga announces 13-song Joker companion album Harlequin
‘I probably shouldn’t do this again’: Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga talk about ‘difficult’ Joker diets
April 2024
Joker: Folie à Deux: trailer for Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga musical sequel released
The sequel sees Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck in Arkham Asylum and Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, who is initially a psychiatrist assigned to treat him
April 2023
Week in geek
Can the Joker musical or Superman save the world from ‘superhero fatigue’?
DC supremo James Gunn has admitted superhero fatigue is ‘very real’ and ‘just watching things bash each other’ is not much fun. What will that mean for his high profile projects?
September 2022
Week in geek
Stop laughing at the back: why shouldn’t Joker 2 be a musical?
With Lady Gaga and Brendon Gleeson in the cast, director Todd Phillips sequel project would sit fine with the nuttiness of the current DC universe
June 2022
Lady Gaga to play Harley Quinn in Joker sequel
Margot Robbie played the character in the Suicide Squad movies, but Gaga’s version is expected to ‘exist in a different universe’
October 2021
TV tonight
TV tonight: Have I Got News for You begins its 62nd series
Ian Hislop and Paul Merton are back, and they will not be short of material. Plus: the finale of The North Water. Here’s what to watch this evening
January 2021
Why a Willy Wonka origins movie could be bad news for children – and Michael Aspel
Will Paul King’s planned prequel follow in the pawprints of Paddington? Or might it stick closer to Warner Bros’ most recent origins hit: Joker?
November 2020
Villains special
Are we the baddies? Pop culture’s grand reckoning with good and evil
Joker 'a betrayal' of mentally ill people, says David Fincher
From first kiss to unfollowing – culture that sums up love in 2020
A book redefining marriage, a riotous show about dating, the secret meanings of breakup songs and a sex show to put your back out … ahead of Valentine’s Day, our critics pick works that sum up love in our turbulent times
