Well, it seems Joker: Folie à Deux is off to a worse start than anyone anticipated. Except those who listened to Todd Phillips of course, who recently had a message for fans of Joker. “Go fuck yourselves”. And it seems many people have listened, given the box office returns.
The off-beat sequel, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, managed a tragic $37.8 million on its opening weekend. To put that into perspective, the original Joker (made with a budget of $55 million) raked in $39 million in a single day back in 2019. With a budget a fraction of Joker 2’s bloated $200 million. Ouch.
Expectations were initially set at a much more optimistic $70 million, but as the release date crept closer, those projections plummeted to around $50-60 million. Now, even that seems like wishful thinking. By the time Monday rolled around, the film hadn’t even hit the low end of those revised numbers, landing below Sunday’s estimate of $40 million—a total disaster for a film with a budget as sizable as this. And given the reviews, there’s very little chance of this having the legs to last long into the holidays.
Let’s not forget that this movie needs to hit around $500 million just to break even. And with bad buzz spreading like wildfire and an abysmal “D” grade on CinemaScore (with the D rating here basically short for “Don’t bother”), the chances of it having any staying power at the box office are looking slim to none.
Overseas, the situation isn’t as bleak, with Folie à Deux bringing in $80 million from international markets—more in line with expectations. But of course the pull from cinemas is greater than that domestically, and the profit margins are less.
When you’re trying to follow up a global smash hit like Joker, which pulled in $1.078 billion worldwide, it’s hard not to see this as anything but a massive downgrade. This time, inflated costs—thanks to star fees for Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, and director Todd Phillips—have left Warner Bros. with a much more expensive problem.
So, what happened? Well, it seems Todd Phillips decided to turn a gritty, character-driven masterpiece into a… musical. And it’s complete with out of tune covers of popular songs like “That’s Life” and “Get Happy,” all while Arthur Fleck – now joined by Gaga’s Harleen Quinzel – sings and dances his way through Arkham Asylum. And audiences have not gone “crazy” or “gaga” for what this film offers.
Critics and analysts alike are already calling it out. Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations, didn’t mince words: “I think the musical element was the wrong direction. If you look at what made Joker a hit, it was going to darker places. Todd Phillips wanted to do something completely different. But if you aren’t giving audiences what they want, I’m not sure who you’re serving.”
That’s the real question, isn’t it? The original Joker worked because it was dark, raw, and unsettling, pushing boundaries and bringing something unique to the table. But a musical? It’s like they took everything that made the first movie work and threw it out the window in favor of a bizarre genre shift that no one asked for.
And that’s before mentioning how this movie butchers Fleck’s character and sticks two middle fingers up at the audience. What a way to endear your fans! In a year that’s already struggling to bring audiences back into theatres, that’s not a great plan.
Joker: Folie à Deux is staring down a long, hard road to profitability. It’s going to need a lot more than an out of tune song and a switch and bait ending to get anywhere near the global success of its predecessor.
With fatigue already setting in for these unnecessary “morally grey” superheroes and audiences showing less tolerance for these kinds of artistic liberties, it feels like this one is destined to flop.
Perhaps Arthur Fleck’s words from the first Joker sum up the disaster of this movie best: “you get what you fucking deserve.”