How Christopher Nolan changed the ending of the first Joker

An idea that Todd Phillips reused for Joker: Folie à deux.

In a long article devoted to the potential consequences of the commercial (and somewhat critical) failure of Joker: Folie à deuxTHE Hollywood Reporter interviewed many sources wishing to remain anonymous. And we learned in particular thanks to one of them that the end of the first Joker was edited by Christopher Nolan, then a leading figure at Warner Bros. and himself director of the trilogy The Dark Knight. According to THRthe first version of the script saw Arthur Fleck slashing his face in front of his fans. But Nolan would have nipped the idea in the bud, ensuring that only his Joker (played by Heath Ledger) had the right to mutilate himself like this.

Warning, spoilers on Joker: Folie à deux to be continued.

Christopher Nolan having since left for Universal, Todd Phillips was able to quietly reuse the concept in Joker: Folie à deux. At the end of the film, a fellow inmate at the prison where Fleck is found stabs the latter to death. Then, slightly out of frame, the murderer cuts himself a perpetual smile with his knife, in front of – we imagine – the Joker that Arthur Fleck no longer wanted to be. Phillips explains this ending in detail:

How to understand the ending of Joker: Folie à deux? Todd Phillips deciphers