The first Joker film gave us the DC villain’s twisted origin story. Joker 2 picks up two years later, with Arthur Fleck finding new love with Harley Quinn. Despite the musical hints in the trailers and the lead actors’ musical backgrounds, Todd Phillips wonders if his sequel is a musical.

Joker 2's trailers feature Joaquin Phoenix singing "For Once in My Life" and "What the World Needs Now." Following a set video featuring Lady Gaga singing a song, the singer is expected to record her own songs. With all these musical teasers in Folie à Deux, does this mean the Joker sequel is a musical? Todd Phillips was hard-pressed to come up with an answer to Variety:

"Most of the music in the movie is actually just dialogue," Phillips said. "It's just that Arthur doesn't have the words to say what he wants to say, so he sings them instead."

It seems like Joker 2 could be a good fit for all-sung musical films like Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, and Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The previous film’s musical moments, like Arthur Fleck’s bathroom and subway-stairs dancing, symbolized his descent into madness. It should be anyone’s guess whether these dreamy song-and-dance sequences are real, fake, a dream, or a delusion.