Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga feature in Todd Phillips’ anti-hero musical, which is the first-ever Hollywood comic book movie to receive a failing grade.
This is no jest.
Joker: Folie à Deux, Todd Phillips’ follow-up to the only Hollywood comic book film ever to receive a D CinemaScore from critics, opened to an estimated $40 million in the United States, far less than anticipated. Audience dissatisfaction with the antihero-musical hybrid, which performed less than half as well as the original Joker at premiere, is evident in the gloomy exit polls.
The Joaquin Phoenix–Lady Gaga film was predicted to gross between $50 and $60 million upon opening, but as weekend traffic stagnated, estimates kept getting down. Most competing studios predicted that it would launch to at least $45 million to $47 million even on Saturday. Remember that the Warner Bros. film was on pace to make $70 million when it started tracking three weeks ago.
Horrible word of mouth was the cause of the regrettable course of events. Because of this, competing studios anticipate that when final grosses are announced on Monday, the ultimate weekend total may actually be between $37 million and $39 million.
Joker 2 debuted to $81 million overseas, in line with projections of a $121 million global debt. Even while the international outcome was somewhat alleviating, it still lags well behind the first Joker. With the exception of China and Japan, where it will debut in the upcoming weeks, the sequel has opened worldwide.
In 2019, Phillips’ Joker made a dreamlike $96.2 million premiere in North America before breaking all previous records to earn $1 billion globally. The movie received a B+ CinemaScore from viewers in addition to a few decent reviews. On horrible Tomatoes, critics have given it a fresh 68 percent rating, while Foile à Deux has a horrible 33 percent.
The controversial, R-rated follow-up from director Todd Phillips had its international premiere at the Venice Film Festival. It is a genre-busting, musically-infused movie that deviates from the conventional fanboy-driven comic book picture. Even more concerning than the D CinemaScore are the appalling exit scores on PostTrak, where viewers are giving it a half-star rating out of five. These ratings are comparable to the early reviews for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which debuted last weekend with $4 million and had a D+ CinemaScore before spectacularly bombing. (Joker’s PostTrak can vary by the conclusion of the weekend.)
Even superhero films with poor box office performance typically have respectable CinemaScores. The Flash, a Warners release that debuted to a miserable $55 million domestically, also garnered a B CinemaScore. Similarly, Marvel Studios’ The Marvels, which opened to a pitiful $46.2 million last year, received a B.
While Martin Scorsese’s prior films were compared to 2019’s Joker, the sequel takes a far slower pace and concentrates on the inner lives of its two stars. While applauding the film’s overall aesthetic appeal, acting, and technical skill, some criticized the storyline. “Folie à Deux feels narratively a little thin and at times dull for a movie running two and a quarter hours,” observed David Rooney, top film reviewer for The Hollywood Reporter, from Venice.
Fantasy musical sequences that feature the couple, who met while Arthur is in Arkham Asylum awaiting trial for his crimes from the first film, make up a large portion of the picture. But since only two of the characters sing in a straight-up musical, Warners and Phillips are hesitant to refer to it as such because a conventional musical often features a large cast singing numerous parts in the songs.
As with the original musical Wonka, the studio has refrained from showcasing the many musical moments in the movie in its promotional materials. Not only did Paramount not promote Mean Girls as a musical, but Warners did not either.
Since Joker’s ending, in which Arthur embraces his alter persona, isn’t entirely followed in the sequel, Phillips is well aware that it’s unconventional. “It is not necessarily the sequel you might expect,” Phillips said, thanking the studio “for taking such a bold swing” during the premiere in Los Angeles on Monday.
The Joker sequel is a product of DC Studios executives James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Elseworlds brand, which permits stories created outside of the shared DC Universe. Instead, Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, co-chiefs of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Bros., ran point on the film (which does not use the DC logo).
More will follow.
