Joaquin Phoenix may be slipping into clown make-up for the upcoming solo Joker film, but we haven’t seen the last of Jared Leto’s version of the Clown Prince of Crime just yet.
Among the many Joker orientated movies being developed by Warner Bros. right now despite the steaming heap that was Suicide Squad, one of these projects is a Joker and Harley Quinn spinoff, which will see Margot Robbie reprise her role of Harley.
And if that sounds like a terrible idea, well, that’s because it is.
In a new report from Metro, the movie’s writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa said their their take on the spinoff will be a cross between Bad Santa and This Is Us in terms of sensibility and the focus will be on Joker and Harley’s relationship problems. Yeah.
There aren’t many good things to say about Suicide Squad but Harley and Joker’s relationship certainly isn’t on that tiny list, which makes the overall concept of their spinoff film completely baffling. Bad Santa and This Is Us are good in their own right, but combining them makes as much sense as twerking on Uluru after being explicitly told not to do it.
As strange as this odd crossover is, the writers are doubling down on the relationship angle, so much so that Ficarra says that the movie begins with Harley kidnapping Dr. Phil and forcing him to fix her and Joker’s relationship. And the kicker? Dr. Phil will be played by Dr. Phil.
God I hope that was a joke because adding Dr. Phil to anything does the complete opposite of making it better.
As for when we will see this bonkers spinoff, Requa has no idea when production will begin since the DC movie slate is constantly in a state of flux.
Now it’s still way too early to determine whether this idea will be a hit or miss, but I would like to point out that combining This Is Us and Bad Santa results in something called “This Is Bad”. Just saying.