Joker: Folie à Deux is the No. 1-grossing movie at the box office, but it may not be destined for a happy ending.
What you need to know ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ is the No. 1 box office movie, but it’s not destined for a happy ending
The studio on Sunday conservatively estimated that director Todd Phillips’ 2019 sequel to Batman’s villainous origin story, which will be released in theaters nationwide this weekend, will gross $40 million at the box office.
That’s less than half of the original film, which grossed more than $1 billion five years ago.
Critics were divided on the sequel, but audiences also seemed to reject it, giving it a fatal D Cinemascore.
In a twist that only Arthur Fleck would find funny, director Todd Phillips’ 2019 sequel to the origin story of the villainous Batman opens in theaters nationwide this weekend, with studio estimates on Sunday showing half that number. It had a modest box office revenue of less than $40 million. of its predecessor. The collapse was rapid and has many in the industry wondering. How could the long-awaited sequel to an Oscar-winning, billion-dollar movie by the same creative team fail?
Just three weeks ago, the tracking service had pegged the film’s opening box office gross at $70 million, still a sizable sum compared to Joker’s record-breaking $96.2 million in October 2019. It should have been lower. It received mixed reviews at the Venice Film Festival. Like the first film, it premiered in competition and also received a 12-minute standing ovation.
But Homecoming’s glow didn’t last long, as its fragile foundation crumbled in the coming weeks, with its Rotten Tomatoes score dropping from 63% in Venice to 33% by its first weekend in theaters. Perhaps even more surprising were the audience reviews. Ticket buyers polled on opening night gave the film a critical D CinemaScore. PostTrak’s exit poll couldn’t have been any better. It only received half a star out of five.
“This is a double whammy and it’s very difficult to recover from that,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at ComScore. “The biggest issue above all else is the reported budget. A $40 million or $50 million opening on a cheaper film would be a solid debut.”
Joker: Folie à Deux cost at least twice as much to make as the first film, although reported numbers vary depending on exactly how much it cost to make. Phillips told Variety that the amount was less than the reported $200 million. Others peg it at $190 million. Warner Bros. released the film in 4,102 locations in North America. About 12.5% of the domestic total came from 415 IMAX screens.
Internationally, it grossed $81.1 million on 25,788 screens, for a total estimated worldwide gross of $121.1 million. Joker 2 will also be released in Japan and China within the next two weeks.
In second place was Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot,” which added $18.7 million in its second weekend to bring its domestic total to nearly $64 million. It has earned over $100 million worldwide. Warner Bros.” fifth weekend saw “Beetlejuice” in third place, Paramount’s “Transformers One” in fourth place and Universal and Blumhouse’s “Speak No Evil” rounding out the top five.
The weekend’s other big new release, Lionsgate’s “White Bird,” opened in just over 1,000 locations and flopped with just $1.5 million despite a CinemaScore A+.
Overall, the weekend is up from the same slot last year, but Joker’s start is an unwelcome development for theater owners hoping to reduce box office losses.
Director Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix said they aspired to make a film as “bold” as their predecessor. The sequel, with Lady Gaga on board as a Joker superfan, delves further into the mind of Arthur Fleck, who is imprisoned in Arkham and awaiting trial for the murders he committed in the first film. It’s also a musical, with elaborately imagined song and dance numbers that follow old standards. Gaga also released a companion album alongside the film called Harlequin.
In a review for the Associated Press, Jake Coyle wrote, “Phillips has followed up his very anti-hero take on Joker with a very anti-sequel. It’s a combination of prison drama, legal thriller, and musical, but it’s not as good as the original. It’s surprisingly inert considering how flammable it was.”
The sequel has already been the subject of numerous think pieces, with some claiming that the sequel is intentionally alienating fans of the first film. In rough parlance, it’s called the “middle finger.” But fans often ignore the advice of critics, especially when it comes to opening their wallets to see a revered comic book character on the big screen.
“They swung for the fences,” Dergarabedian said. “But barring a few outliers, audiences in 2024 seem to want to know what they’re going to get when they go to the theater. They want something tried and true, something familiar. I want it.”
There are also some notable advocates. Francis Ford Coppola, who last week earned his own D+ CinemaScore for the expensive, ambitious and divisive film “Megalopolis,” joined in on the Joker chat in an Instagram post.
“@ToddPhillips’ movies always surprise me and I thoroughly enjoy them,” Coppola wrote. “Since the great Hangover, he has always been one step ahead of the audience and never disappoints.”
“Megalopolis,” meanwhile, dropped 74% in its second weekend to just over $1 million, for a total of just under $6.5 million against a budget of $120 million.
Deadline editor Anthony D’Alessandro believes the problem started with the idea of turning the Joker sequel into a musical. “No fan of the original movie wanted to see a sequel to the musical,” he wrote on Saturday.
The first film was also divisive and the subject of much debate over whether it sent the wrong message to the wrong type of people. Still, people flocked to see what all the fuss was about. Joker was nominated for 11 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won three. Before Marvel’s Deadpool and Wolverine took the crown this summer, it had grossed more than $1 billion, making it the highest-grossing R-rated film in history.
Estimated ticket sales from Friday through Sunday in U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Final national figures will be released on Monday.
1. Joker: Folie à Deux, $40 million.
2. “Wild Robot,” $18.7 million.
3. “Beetlejuice,” $10.3 million.
4. “Transformers One,” $5.4 million.
5. “Speak No Evil,” $2.8 million.
6. “Sam and Colby: A Paranormal Legend,” $1.8 million.
7. “White Bird,” $1.5 million.
8. “Deadpool & Wolverine,” $1.5 million.
9. “The Substance,” $1.3 million.
10. “Megalopolis,” $1.1 million.
