Five years after “ Joker ” won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, director Todd Phillips can’t help but be a little nervous about returning with its sequel.

“Joker: Folie à Deux,” one of the festival’s most anticipated films of the 81st edition of the festival, premiered Wednesday and theatergoers at the Sala Grande theater gave the movie and stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga an 11-minute standing ovation.

“It feels right, it feels correct to be back in Venice. It felt like the logical launching off point for us,” Phillips said ahead of the premiere. “On this one I’m a little more nervous. It’s a lot easier to come into something as the insurgent rather than the incumbent.”

A sequel was more a joke than an inevitability to Phillips and Phoenix while making the first movie. For one, Phoenix is not the kind of actor to jump at a “franchise.” But then an idea emerged to explore the music that Phoenix’s character, Arthur Fleck, is hearing in his head. It would have to be as bold, unexpected and audacious as the first, they thought.

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