Willem Dafoe Has A Crazy Idea For A ‘Joker’ Sequel

Willem Dafoe has been told by comic book fans that he would make a perfect Joker for several years now – the man certainly has the face for the role, and his cackling Green Goblin performance shows that he’s able to ham it up as a comic book villain. 

In a recent interview with British GQ, Dafoe playfully pitched the idea of playing a copycat Joker alongside Joaquin Phoenix’s unusual interpretation of the character in Todd Phillips’ Joker. Dafoe stated: 

“There is something interesting about, like, if there was a Joker imposter. So it would be possible to have not duelling Jokers but someone that says to be the Joker that isn’t the Joker. And that kind of opens up the possibility of an interesting story, particularly if you had Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, and then you had someone who was either imitating or riffing off what he did.”

He added: “I fantasised about that. But other than that I am not talking to anybody [about it], you’re the first one.”

It might just be a one-off comment during an interview, but Dafoe’s idea is genuinely interesting. After all, it’s difficult to envision a sequel to Phoenix’s Joker, as the film shows Bruce Wayne as a side character, several years away from becoming Batman to challenge the supervillain, who isn’t really a supervillain at all in that incarnation. 

However, a sequel to Joker is already in development, which is hardly a surprise, seeing as the film made a billion dollars at the box office, on a $70 million budget. And it’s unlikely that Dafoe’s random comment would be integrated into the film … but stranger things have happened before. For example, the Snyder Cut of Justice League was considered a ridiculous pipe dream, a fantasy of fanboys, until HBO Max made it into reality.  

A rival Joker might be exactly what a Joker sequel needs to justify its own existence, to create an exciting conflict without having to introduce Batman, whose latest reboot with Robert Pattinson is mere months away from release. 

Plus, the idea ties into the original Joker because Phoenix’s version of the character inspires a wave of copycat protesters in the film. It’s not a big stretch to imagine that someone more cunning and conniving than Arthur Fleck could be inspired to take the Joker identity and use it for something more ambitious. 

Plus, the idea of multiple Jokers, existing simultaneously, already has precedence in the comics, with the storyline “Three Jokers” revealing that the Clown Prince of Crime has always been three separate madmen, each with their own distinctive spin on the persona; one serious, one silly, and the third, a sadistic nihilist.

Much like Spider-Man, the Joker is an overused comic book character who the audience never seems to grow tired of; Spider-Man was famously invigorated after multiple Spider-People were introduced in Into The Spider-Verse, and more recently, No Way Home, which also functioned as a metacommentary on the character’s prevalence in pop culture.

After its initial sputtering, Warner Bros. has allowed its DC universe to experiment with odd ideas like this (in many ways, the DC cinematic universe has become more interesting than the MCU).

If Dafoe’s crazy idea could be realized somewhere, it would surely be there.