VENICE, Italy — The Venice Film Festival is getting ready to welcome Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix for the world premiere of “Joker: Folie à Deux” Wednesday night.
Todd Phillips’ film is one of the most highly anticipated films of the festival and is in the official competition five years after ‘Joker’ won the Golden Lion. Warner Bros. gives the dark comic book film a glitzy festival treatment before its theatrical release this October.
In Joker: Folie à Deux, Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck is institutionalized in Arkham and awaits trial for his crimes. There he meets Gaga’s Harley Quinn.
“We knew we had to swing for the fences; we wanted to create something as crazy and fearless as Joker himself,” Phillips wrote in his director’s statement. “So Scott Silver and I wrote a script that delved deeper into the idea of identity. Who is Arthur Fleck? And where does the music in him come from?”
The sequel to the Joker competes for the festival’s top prizes against the likes of Pedro Almodóvar’s ‘The Room Next Door’, ‘Queer’ by Luca Guadagnino, ‘Maria’ by Pablo Larraín and ‘Babygirl’ by Halina Reijn. The prizes will be awarded on the last day of the festival, September 7.
In a lineup full of major Hollywood stars including Angelina Jolie, George Clooney and Brad Pitt, there’s also quite a bit of excitement about what Gaga might wear.
Six years ago, she played the role of movie star perfectly for ‘A Star Is Born’, with grand looks and entrances that gave the festival some of the most iconic shots of this century. Remember how she sat on the side of the private water taxi in that black Jonathan Simkhai bustier dress, blowing kisses to fans and photographers? Later, for the red carpet, she wore a stunning light pink Valentino Couture dress with feathers, which seemed to stand out even more against the rainy background.
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More coverage of the 2024 Venice Film Festival: https://apnews.com/hub/venice-film-festival
