YouTube Adds, Then Removes, Warning From Joker 2 Trailer

At CinemaCon, Warner Bros. Pictures debuted the first trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux, which arrived online shortly thereafter. Although the video was initially posted without a content warning on YouTube, the platform subsequently added one before deleting the warning a few hours later.

Via Variety, the warning said that the trailer "may contain suicide or self-harm topics." Presumably this was in response to a scene where Lady Gaga's Harley Quinn pantomimes shooting herself. That was an action that Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck performed a few times in the original Joker movie.

In the following statement, a spokesperson for YouTube blamed the warning on an automated system that mistakenly applied it to the video: "We determined that our systems applied the warning interstitial incorrectly. The trailer remains available on YouTube without a warning.”

The trailer establishes a few key differences in the way that Joker and Harley come together. In this incarnation, Harley (aka Harleen Quinzel) is a fellow inmate instead of a doctor at Arkham Asylum. Regardless, Arthur and Harley appear to be immediately drawn together in a mad musical world of their own creation. And in this timeline, there's no sign of a Batman who can stop them if they decide to break out together.

Joker: Folie à Deux will hit theaters on Friday, October 4.