Todd Phillips‘ sequel Joker: Folie à Deux bombed in its box office debut with an estimated domestic opening of $40 million, well behind expectations after becoming the the first Hollywood comic book movie in history to earn a D CinemaScore from audiences.
It’s critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes is a fresh 68 percent, compared to a rotten 33 percent for Foile à Deux.
Joker: Folie à Deux reunites Phillips with Phoenix, who returns in the titular role after winning the Oscar for best actor for his portrayal of Arthur Fleck/Joker.
Folie à Deux can still claim victory in winning the weekend and helping power overall revenue ahead of the same weekend last year, according to Comscore chief box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
Congratulations to Joker: Folie à Deux,” Coppola wrote on Instagram.
This is no laughing matter.
After becoming the first Hollywood comic book movie ever to receive a D CinemaScore from critics, Todd Phillips’ follow-up Joker: Folie à Deux bombed at the box office with an estimated $40 million domestic opening, far below expectations. Exit surveys reveal even more dissatisfaction from viewers of the antihero-musical mashup, which performed less than half as well at the box office as the original Joker did at launch despite costing more than three times as much, or $190 million.
Though estimates were continuously lowered throughout the weekend as traffic stagnated, the Joaquin Phoenix–Lady Gaga movie was predicted to debut to at least $50 million to $60 million. At least $45 million to $47 million was the opening weekend gross according to the majority of competing studios. Additionally, keep in mind that when the Warner Bros. When the film started to be tracked three weeks ago, it was expected to gross $70 million.
Joker 2 debuted internationally at $81 points1 million, matching projections for a global debt of $121 points1 million. Although there was some respite from the overseas result, it still lags significantly behind the first Joker. With the exception of China and Japan, where it will debut in the upcoming weeks, the sequel has opened everywhere.
Horrible rumors are to blame for the regrettable turn of events. Because of this, competing studios anticipate that when final grosses are announced on Monday, the final domestic figure may actually be between $37 million and $39 million. Warner Brothers. Insiders claim that the studio is shocked and extremely disappointed with the outcome, and that there is no way to sugarcoat it. They also think Phillips is a creative genius who is worth taking a chance on.
2019 saw the stunning $96.2 million North American premiere of Phillips’ Joker, which went on to smash records globally by taking in $1 billion against a $55 million budget. Before Deadpool and Wolverine arrived, it was the highest grossing R-rated movie ever made both domestically and internationally. Joker was rated fairly well by critics and received a B+ CinemaScore from viewers. Foile à Deux has a corrupt 33 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while its critics have given it a fresh 68 percent.
The divisive, R-rated follow-up from director Jordan Peele, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, is a genre-busting, musically-infused movie that deviates from the conventional fanboy-driven comic book picture. As concerning as 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 reminiscent of the early reviews for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which debuted last weekend with $4 million and received a D+ CinemaScore before spectacularly bombing. (Joker’s PostTrak may vary by the end of the weekend. ).
Superhero or antihero films typically have respectable CinemaScores even when they are a box office bust. The Marvels from Marvel Studios, which had a miserable $46 point 2 million opening weekend last year, received a B. Similarly, The Flash, another Warners release, debuted with a dismal $55 million domestic gross and a B CinemaScore. Both films were regarded as huge failures.
While Martin Scorsese’s earlier films were compared to 2019’s Joker, the sequel takes a much slower pace and concentrates on the inner lives of its two leads. Although the movie’s storyline has drawn criticism, critics have applauded the film’s overall beauty, craft, and performances. “Folie à Deux feels narratively a little thin and at times dull for a movie running two and a quarter hours,” noted chief film critic David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter, based in Venice.
With Phoenix and Gaga’s performances in particular, the film still has high hopes of winning a lot of Oscars.
Joker: Folie à Deux brings Phillips and Phoenix back together. Phoenix played Arthur Fleck/Joker in the Academy Award winning film, for which he won best actor. Before deciding to move forward with the film and cast Gaga in a part based on the comic book character Harley Quinn, both Phillips and Phoenix were unsure about producing a sequel and briefly considered staging a Broadway production.
The couple, who first met while Arthur is in Arkham Asylum awaiting trial for his crimes from the first film, is the focus of a large number of fantasy musical numbers in the film. 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 traditional musical typically features a large cast singing numerous parts in the songs.
Similar to their approach to promoting Wonka, the official musical, the studio has refrained from emphasising the film’s many musical moments in its promotional materials. Not only did Paramount not promote Mean Girls as a musical, but Warners did not either.
As the sequel doesn’t exactly follow through on Joker’s ending, which sees Arthur embrace his alter ego, Phillips is well aware that the film is unconventional. It is not necessarily the sequel you might expect, Phillips said at the Los Angeles premiere last Monday, thanking the studio “for taking such a bold swing.”. “.
The Joker sequel is produced by DC Studios executives James Gunn and Peter Safran as part of the DC Elseworlds brand, which permits stories to be created that are set outside of the shared DC Universe. As an alternative, Warner Bros. Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca, co-chiefs of Motion Picture Production, were critical of the film because it lacked the DC logo. ( ).
Based on Comscore’s chief box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian’s analysis, Folie à Deux still has a chance to win the weekend and boost overall revenue over the same weekend in 2017. It is more difficult to reconcile such a creative gamble because of the film’s huge, reportedly budgeted production, he pointed out.
The Wild Robot from DreamWorks Animation and Universal fared well in its second weekend, coming in second with $18.7 million, making a total domestic of $63.09 million, and surpassing the $100 milestone internationally.
In its fifth weekend, the $400 million mark was crossed by Warners’ box office smash Beetlejuice. It made $265.5 million in North America and $402.6 million globally, placing it third domestically with $10.3 million.
With $54.1 million in its third weekend, Paramount’s family-friendly animated Transformers One finished fourth domestically, bringing its total domestic sales to $47.2 million and $97 million worldwide.
Speak No Evil by Blumhouse and Universal completed the top five domestically with $20.8 million, bringing its total revenue in North America to $32.6 million and worldwide to $67.4 million.
The Legends of the Paranormal, starring YouTube stars Sam and Colby, performed respectably in theaters, taking sixth place with $1.08 million from just 295 showings.
White Bird, a $1.05 million Lionsgate release that debuted in 1,018 theaters, is Marc Forster’s latest underwhelming film.
With a steep 74 percent decline in its second weekend to $1.1 million, for a total North American box office of $6.5 million, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which is also handled by Lionsgate, finished tenth. Coppola showed his support for Phillips on social media on Saturday. “He’s always been one step ahead of the audience, never doing what they expect, ever since the fantastic The Hangover.”. Coppola posted on Instagram, “Happy birthday, Joker: Folie à Deux.”.
October. 6, 8:15 a.m. me. There have been updated estimates added to this story.
October. 6, at nine thirty a.m. me. More estimates have been added to this story.
The first edition of this story appeared in Oct. 5 at 8:20 in the morning. me.
