Arthur (Joaquin Phoenix) tries to lighten the mood, but the guards stick it to him anyway in Joker: Folie a Deux (2024), Warner Bros. Pictures

In the arts, there are two common sayings: “We’re our own harshest critics” and “Everybody steals, but the smartest people steal from the best.” When it comes to Joker: Folie a Deux, there is truth in both quotes, but the harshest critic might be the person who was stolen from.
Joaquin Phoenix in Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), Warner Bros. Pictures
It’s no secret who and what inspired Joker (Martin Scorsese was even attached to the project at one point), but Todd Phillips likely thought he was pretty smart for borrowing elements of Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy to make his anti-comic book movie.

However, the writer of the former film, Paul Schrader, was not impressed and was so far from that he could not get through Joker’s struggling sequel at all. “I saw about 10 or 15 minutes of it,” Schrader said to playwright Jeremy O. Harris during a conversation for Interview Magazine.
Paul Schrader on The Adam Friedland Show via YouTube
Schrader added he took a break from the film to go shopping and returned, but didn’t stay long. “I left, bought something, came back, saw another 10 minutes. That was enough,” he said.

Equally unimpressed with the musical aspect, though he appreciates that genre, Schrader flagellated Todd Phillips’s creative decision-making on that one. “Well, that’s what Joker is, kind of. It’s a really bad musical,” he said. The musical numbers didn’t grab him and neither did the fact the Joker movies are loosely based on DC comic characters from Batman lore.

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) rages in Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), Warner Bros. Pictures
Like Scorsese, Schrader is not the least bit interested in the superhero genre. When asked if he would consider working on a Marvel movie, Schrader cut the question off with an emphatic “No!” With the state of their brand and the superhero genre today, no one could really blame him for that.

You might think the cast or portrayals had some redeeming qualities, but Schrader confessed he couldn’t stand them either. “I don’t like either of those people. I don’t like them as actors. I don’t like them as characters. I don’t like the whole thing,” he said.

“I mean, those are people who, if they came to your house, you’d slip out the back door,” Schrader added. That’s sort of what moviegoers have been doing. They didn’t flock to Folie a Deux the way they did for the first one, making the sequel one of the worst boondoggles in cinematic history.