After a press campaign that felt much longer than the one-month it’s been since it premiered in Venice, Joker: Folie à Deux finally came out over the weekend. And it broke records!! Just, not in the direction anyone associated with the film was aiming for. The sequel is now the first comic book movie to nab a D from CinemaScore (2019’s Joker scored a B+), and it also netted 33% from Rotten Tomatoes (compared to Joker’s 68%). But those are only the opinions of people who saw the movie, which was a much smaller contingency than projected/expected/prayed for. Less than a month ago the studio boasted it would earn $70 million domestically in its opening weekend. The actual number will be around $40 million or less. It did better internationally, raking in $81.1 million, but even when you add that to the domestic tally, the figures are well below its $190 million budget. The Hollywood Reporter did a breakdown on the low numbers for Folie à Todd:
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 first Hollywood comic book movie in history to earn a D CinemaScore from audiences. Exit polls are equally as grim as audiences express their unhappiness with the antihero-musical mashup, which did less than half of the business the first Joker did in its launch despite costing more than three times as much to make, or $190 million.
The Joaquin Phoenix-Lady Gaga pic was expected to open to at least $50 million to $60 million, but projections were continually downgraded throughout the weekend as traffic stalled. Even on Saturday, most rival studios showed it opening to at least $45 million to $47 million. And don’t forget that when the Warner Bros. movie first came on tracking three weeks ago, it was pacing to earn $70 million.
Overseas, Joker 2 opened to $81.1 million, in line with expectations for a global debt of $121.1 million. While the overseas result provided some relief, it’s still notably behind the first Joker. The sequel opened everywhere save for Japan and China, where it launches in the coming weeks.
The culprit behind the unfortunate turn-of-events: terrible word of mouth. Hence, rival studios believe the final domestic number could actually be in the $37 million to $39 million range when final grosses are reported Monday. Warner Bros. insiders say there is no way to sugarcoat the results and that the studio is stunned and sorely disappointed. At the same time, they believe Phillips is a creative genius and worthy of gambling on.
In 2019, Phillips’ Joker debuted to a dreamy $96.2 million in North America on its way to a record-shattering worldwide total of $1 billion against a $55 million budget. It remained the top-grossing R-rated film of all time domestically and globally until Deadpool & Wolverine came along. Joker earned relatively good reviews, while audiences gave it a B+ CinemaScore. Its critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes is a fresh 68 percent, compared to a rotten 33 percent for Folie à Deux.
Phillips’ polarizing, R-rated sequel — which made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival — is a genre-busting, music-infused film that strays outside of the comfort zone of the typical fanboy-fueled comic book pic. Just as worrisome as the D CinemaScore are terrible exit scores on PostTrak, with audiences giving it a half-star out of five, similar to the early scores for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which bombed in spectacular fashion last weekend with $4 million after earning a D+ CinemaScore.
You see, all is not lost — Folie à Deux out-performed Megaflopolis! And not only that, but Francis Ford Coppola lavished praise on Todd Phillips over the weekend, writing on his Instagram that Phillips is always “one step ahead of the audience never doing what they expect. Congratulations to Joker: Folie à Deux.” I guess in this case, Phillip’s “one step ahead” meant an actual step into the theater. Most of the reviews have been good for the performances and art direction, it’s the story that’s the problem. Or lack thereof. Also, I think they shot themselves in the foot with the marketing being so afraid to call it a musical. I mean, sure, I can understand the returning filmmakers worrying that saying the word “musical” would scare off the bros. But I thought at least Lady Gaga would embrace the genre! Instead she toed the line, giving this inexplicable explanation: “The way that music is used is to really give the characters a way to express what they mean to say because the scene and just the dialogue is not enough.” My Lady, you just very eloquently defined the essence of a musical. Anyway, now that Folie à Deux has conclusively underperformed, can we press Joaquin Phoenix on why he bolted the Todd Haynes movie at the last minute?
Photos credit: Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon and via Instagram