The director behind the production of "Joker 2" refused to cooperate with the new DC president Gunn

Joker 2's dismal box office opening weekend sparked a flurry of reports about the film's production, including that director Todd Phillips seemed resentful of working with the new leadership at DC Studios.

Variety reported new details on Tuesday, saying that despite James Gunn and Peter Safran being named co-CEOs of DC Studios months before production on Joker 2 began, Phillips "wanted nothing to do with DC."

Phillips was reportedly "resistant" to working with the new leadership at DC Studios, liaising only with Warner Bros. Film Group heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy.

It is worth noting that the new DC Studios logo does not appear at the beginning of Joker 2, which was considered by Variety to be a sign that Phillips gave DC the middle finger. The new DC Studios logo has appeared in other recent DC-related projects, including the HBO series Penguin and Christopher Reeve's documentary Superman.

However, a representative of Warner Bros. pointed out that the DC logo appeared in the end credits of Joker 2. The Variety article also mentioned that James Gunn and Peter Safran missed the premiere of Joker 2 in Los Angeles on September 30. In this regard, a DC representative told Variety that Gunn was filming the second season of Peacemaker in Atlanta at the time, and Safran was ill.

James Gunn, an executive/creative officer who is unusually transparent on social media, has yet to comment on this report. IGN has also reached out to DC Studios for further comment.

The first person on the left is director Todd Phillips

Meanwhile, foreign media The Hollywood Reporter published a report on Monday, revealing other details behind the scenes of the movie "Joker 2".

First, it is said that the lead actor Joaquin Phoenix came up with the idea of ​​filming a sequel to the $1 billion blockbuster "Joker" released in 2019 in a dream and promoted the filming of the film. Before filming the sequel, he and Phillips also considered filming a Broadway musical.

THR's report also mentioned an interesting detail about the ending of Joker 2, which is also one of the most controversial parts of the sequel. At the end of the film, Joaquin's Joker was killed in prison by a character we have never seen before (Connor Storrie), who then carved a smile on his face.

According to THR, the original ending of the first Joker featured a similar scene, with the Joker carving a smile into his face with a knife in front of a crowd of supporters. Nolan, who was still at Warner Bros. at the time, reportedly "shot down the idea, believing that only his Joker (Heath Ledger) should have the words carved into his face."

Nolan and Warner Bros. reportedly split publicly after the studio decided to move its entire 2021 film slate to streaming service Max, with Nolan now at Universal Pictures.