Despite Joker: Folie à Deux’s musical twist, there’s no dancing around this one: Todd Phillips’ follow-up to his 2019 DC megahit had a disastrous opening weekend.
Joker: Folie à Deux opened to a dismal $37.8 million domestically over the weekend, less than half of the $96.2 million opening of the first Joker. That puts it below the disappointing debut weekends of other comic-book movies including The Marvels ($47 million) and The Flash ($55 million), as well as early tracking that predicted the sequel opening at $70 million-plus.
Joker: Folie à Deux found some reprieve overseas, taking in an estimated $81.1 million internationally for a global total of $121 million. But four analysts IGN spoke to agree: it’s not looking good for Joker: Folie à Deux, especially considering a reported $200 million budget that would require it to pass $450 million to break even.
“We haven’t seen a sequel so savagely ignored by moviegoers since Disney’s Through the Looking Glass,” says Jeff Bock, Senior Box Office Analyst at Exhibitor Relations. “Simply put, this is an unmitigated disaster for the studio, and this rabbit hole leads back to only one place — the WB lot.”
Looking at the numbers, the next obvious question is: how did we get here? The first Joker was a surprise smash for Warner Bros., becoming the first R-rated movie in history to cross $1 billion and scoring numerous accolades, including an Academy Award for Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Arthur Fleck/The Joker. Add in an A-list star like Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn and you should have a surefire success… right?
Well, apparently not, and according to our analysts, you can’t blame overall industry trends either. “This is absolutely a case of a singular movie's particular set of circumstances,” says Shawn Robbins, director of analytics, movies at Fandango and founder and owner of Box Office Theory.
“First and foremost, the previous film caught lightning in a bottle,” he says. “Hindsight is 20/20, but it was a minor miracle that a dark crime film focused on mental health and sociopolitical issues was as big of a box office hit as Joker was five years ago. Sure, the IP contributed to that, but it was also a character that had historically succeeded in large part because of his mysterious past and very minimal origin story.”
Basically, it’s the challenge to capture lightning in a bottle twice that all of our analysts point to. Don’t put the heat on marketing, “superhero/comic-book fatigue,” or anything else – the issue with Joker: Folie à Deux is the movie itself.
“Marketing could not have done any better – the movie is what it is,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research.
Some started to raise eyebrows as soon as the news of the sequel was even announced, given the standalone nature of the first movie. More information sparked curiosity, but also signals that this would mark yet another big creative swing from Phillips. Particularly, the rumors that Joker: Folie à Deux would be a musical, something Phillips would later hedge slightly.
But the real nail in the coffin? Our analysts agree: it was what people actually had to say about the movie after seeing it.
“For any film to be successful, there must be at least one camp that supports it and whether that’s moviegoers or critics, you need at least one of those groups to get on board, spread the positive word, build word-of-mouth and power long-term potential for solid box office returns,” says Paul Dergarabedian, Senior Media Analyst with Comscore. “Unfortunately for Joker: Folie à Deux, a one-two punch of both negative reviews and moviegoer indifference created monumental headwinds for the big-budget high-profile sequel.”
Joker: Folie à Deux made its official debut to critics and industry observers at the Venice International Film Festival a month before its release, which may have been a show of overconfidence on Warner Bros.’ part. IGN gave it a 5/10 in our review, and we weren’t alone; critics ravaged the sequel out of the festival, targeting its wasted potential and a bloated and clunky script. It currently sits at an abysmal 33% on Rotten Tomatoes.
But maybe, just maybe, positive word-of-mouth from fans could’ve saved the hype – but that goodwill was nowhere to be found. According to Puck News, Warner Bros. didn’t even conduct test screenings to gauge fan sentiment, an extremely unusual move for a movie of Joker: Folie à Deux’s status.
So, perhaps it’s not too surprising to see that fans have so fiercely rejected it; the sequel now has the dubious distinction of being the first comic-book movie ever to earn a D on CinemaScore, a well-known market research firm that tracks audience sentiment on opening weekends. Even Madame Web got a C+.
The Joker: FOLIE A DEUX scores a D. Did you catch this in theaters tonight? We would love to hear your thoughts. #TheJoker #cinemascore pic.twitter.com/FOKksjFRN9
— CinemaScore (@CinemaScore) October 5, 2024
Our analysts blame the film and the reception to it for the devastating weekend, not the perceived burn-out from audiences in regards to comic-book-related media. Robbins says the so-called “superhero fatigue” is “an inadequate cheat sheet of an excuse, especially in a year when Deadpool & Wolverine has achieved record-breaking success.”
“This has nothing to do with superhero fatigue and everything to do with misreading the room,” adds Bock. “WB and the creators of this sequel took the franchise in a direction the majority of moviegoers rejected. They overspend and the movie vastly underperformed — two words that give studios nightmares.”
What’s worse, no one seems particularly hopeful that Joker: Folie à Deux might end up rebounding in the ensuing weekends: “Audiences and critics did not like it and with poor word-of-mouth and reviews, it's not going to recover now,” Gross asserts.
Dergarabedian notes that it would have to rely on positive buzz “from those who appreciate the risk-taking creative shift” the sequel took, but that doesn’t provide much confidence. Studio insiders told The Hollywood Reporter that Warner Bros. is “stunned and sorely disappointed” in the opening weekend results. Odds are, the studio is having plenty of internal conversations about what is on track to be a major disappointment.
“A studio can’t market an unmarketable film. That’s essentially what Joker 2 is — something a majority of moviegoers didn’t want. Not like this,” says Bock. “With so many places to go in the DC Universe, the creators of this went to a courtroom and back to jail. There is no get out of jail card for WB here — its fate was sealed when they greenlighted this script.”
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
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