Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix spark a bad romance in Joker 2 Valentine's Day preview

Love, revenge, and vertigo shtick are seemingly on the table in the bad romance charted by Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix in director Todd Phillips' upcoming DC sequel Joker: Folie á Deux.

The filmmaker — who's reprising his duties from the Oscar-winning 2019 hit Joker — dropped a surprise Valentine's Day preview Wednesday on Instagram, sharing a trio of photos from the highly anticipated movie that's set to follow the titular character as he navigates a new love affair with famed villainess Harley Quinn.

"Hoping your day is full of love," Phillips wrote in the caption of his post, which features a carousel of shots teasing Gaga and Phoenix's transformations into the iconic comic book characters.

The first shot sees the duo shrouded in darkness, with a lone beam of light forming a heart shape around them. The second image shows Gaga using her nose to nuzzle Phoenix's through a pair of prison bars — seemingly marking the second time Gaga's nose has taken center stage in a major motion picture, after Bradley Cooper memorably traced his hand down her face at the beginning of 2018's A Star Is Born.

The final picture shows Phoenix and Gaga dancing on a Gotham City rooftop, with an artificial-looking sky — complete with boxy buildings and an exaggerated moon — framing them from behind.

Phillips' post marks the latest in a series of teases he's unveiled since the movie wrapped filming in early 2023. On Christmas Day, he shared another batch of stills that teased the Joker and Harley's entanglement, offering a further tease of a film with a plot that's been kept tightly under wraps.

The film is expected contain musical elements as it chronicles Joker's romance with a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, with paparazzi photos from the movie's production in New York City glimpsing Gaga going full clown with a wild face of smudged makeup worn atop a crimson blazer and a checkered bodice reminiscent of the outfit worn by Harley Quinn in DC releases.

Cinematographer Lawrence Sher revealed last year that Gaga (born Stefani Germanotta) did not initially connect with him on set, which he said he later learned was because of her commitment to Method acting.

"The [assistant director] at one point said, 'Oh, you know, Stef would like if you just called her Lee on set', and I was like, 'Oh, 100 percent,' and… the next thing I said was something 'Lee,' and it was like everything changed," Sher told The Trenches podcast in July. "From that point on it was like our whole connection changed. I was like, all right, cool, that's all I need to know. That changed everything. Then we made the rest of the movie, and it was much more of connection."

Joker: Folie á Deux hits theaters Oct. 4. See Phillips' new post above.

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