Joker: 3 major reasons why there should not be a sequel

2. Joker is an anti-comic book movie; a sequel would go against that philosophy.

In a long-form interview, Todd Phillips went into full detail on why he made Joker and the outside influences that forced him to leave comedy and make a comic-book movie. Whether you agree with his points is up for another debate, but the main point is that he wanted to make a movie that went against the mainstream comic-book movie.

Marvel is the standard bearer when it comes to comic-book movies. MCU movies routinely make massive amounts of money at the box office and, in a way, fans go into other comic-book movies expecting that kind of quality.

Those kinds of expectations are what made Joker so shocking. It was dramatically different in tone from mainstream comic-book movies and functioned like a drama that is looking to be nominated for an Academy Award.

Ironically, the movie’s success could be rationalized by not the content of the movie, but due to the fact that the Joker is synonymous with Batman. There is no fact-driven basis as to why Joker made so much money at the box office, but people like Batman and anything related to that IP could be a factor.

Phillips was trying to do something different; so different in fact that Warner Bros. was worried about how well the movie would do and made executive decisions to make sure they would not be burned too hard financially if the movie failed. Though it should be noted that the marketing of this movie showed that Warner Bros. would try everything in their power to make sure the movie was not a complete bust.

Warner Bros. will be sure to make sure they will get 100 percent of the profits in a sequel, but a sequel would fall in line with mainstream comic-book movies. If Phillips wants Joker to be an anti-comic-book movie, then he should let the film be a one-off event, allowing it to live on its own.