The press conference for Joker: Folie à Deux happened today in Venice ahead of its world premiere with director Todd Phillips, Lady Gaga, and Joaquin Phoenix in attendance. This is the role for which Joaquin won his Best Actor Oscar and anticipation is high for the sequel, especially with Gaga’s participation. 

 

But there was another major Joaquin story that dropped a few weeks ago that has nothing to do with Joker – he dropped out of a film that was his own idea, that was well into production, just days away from filming, to be directed by the brilliant Todd Haynes. And his exit has left an entire crew without pay or opportunities since they were expecting to be on that job for at least a couple of months. 

 

This is such a dick move, a dickier move than so much of what social media piles on people about, and yet, the internet basically shrugged. Here’s an example of what I’ve been seeing on social media.

 

So a hat tip to Screen International’s Ben Dalton for actually asking the question. 

Basically, as Mary Kate Carr wrote at The AV Club, his answer is “creative differences”. Those “creative differences” have cost a lot of people who don’t have Joaquin’s resources a lot of stress and money. They could cost him if there’s a lawsuit. But he has the backing of a major studio because he’s out here fronting a major movie. And it’s not like he won’t be cast in another movie, he’s Joaquin Phoenix. 

 

And meanwhile, at the moment, he’s borrowing goodwill from Lady Gaga and her fans. 

 

Reactions like that will further bury the fact that Joaquin stranded a whole film and the people working on it. And on top of that we’ll have to hear more about how he did live singing on Joker: Folie à Deux – which, by the way, we already knew he could sing, he did it in Walk The Line. 

Speaking of Walk The Line, though, that’s the film Reese Witherspoon won her Oscar for and some are speculating that Gaga could contend for an Oscar for best actress with this performance and if that’s the case, then the formula here might be that when Joaquin sings, his scene partners win. So no, we will never again have to talk about how he walked the line out of the movie with Todd Haynes because who wants to think about that when we can think about this?

 

As for Gaga, she has nothing to do with that mess so I’m not trying to involve her in it at all. In fact she’s the reason I’m actually going to see Folie à Deux (because I hated the first movie) and I hope she, and only she, kills it. Also her styling for this press tour so far – understated (by her standards), demure, if we’re not overusing the word, almost the spiritual opposite of what she brought to House of Gucci. I’m into it. Very curious to see what that looks like on the red carpet later.