The negative reviews and reactions surrounding Joker: Folie à Deux have severely impacted its performance at the box office. The expensive sequel to 2019’s hit film had a weak opening weekend, earning under $40 million domestically in its first three days.
This figure is only about a third of what the original Joker made in its opening weekend in 2019, before the pandemic. It is also lower than the opening weekend numbers of some of the biggest recent box office failures. Directed by Todd Phillips, the film stars Joaquin Phoenix, who reprises his role as the Joker, and Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn.
With only $40 million in its first weekend, Joker: Folie à Deux earned slightly more than Morbius, but fell short of The Marvels and The Flash, three well-known comic book movie flops. For comparison, A Star Is Born, which also starred Lady Gaga, opened with $42 million and went on to make more than $400 million globally.
In contrast, the first Joker earned nearly $100 million in its debut weekend and eventually brought in $335 million domestically and over $1 billion worldwide. The original film also won several awards, including a Best Actor Oscar for Phoenix, and was made on a modest budget of around $70 million.
However, Joker: Folie à Deux had a much higher production cost of around $200 million. It, too, played in competition at the Venice Film Festival like its predecessor, but the reviews were far less favorable. Currently, the film holds a low 33% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Audience reception has been even harsher, with viewers giving it a 31% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a historically low D score on CinemaScore. This is the worst score ever for a comic book movie on CinemaScore, even worse than what controversial films like Megalopolis and Babylon received.
Warner Bros., which already saw a major loss this year with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, seems to be headed for another flop with Joker: Folie à Deux.
‘The Wild Robot’ and ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Continue to Succeed
After leading the box office in its opening weekend, DreamWorks’ The Wild Robot dropped to second place, bringing in just under $20 million in its second weekend. The highly praised animated movie is close to surpassing the $65 million mark domestically.
Made with a budget of $80 million, The Wild Robot holds an impressive 98% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, and its strong performance has benefited from Joker: Folie à Deux’s failure to draw large audiences.
Meanwhile, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, another Warner Bros. hit, came in third place. It earned over $10 million in its fifth weekend, reaching a total of $265 million domestically.
In fourth place was Paramount’s Transformers One, which is still struggling to break the $50 million mark after two weeks in theaters. Despite receiving excellent reviews, the movie hasn’t attracted large crowds. It made just over $5 million this weekend and will likely find more viewers when it hits digital platforms.
Rounding out the top five was Universal’s horror film Speak No Evil. Although the remake hasn’t been a massive hit, it has consistently drawn audiences. Speak No Evil has now made over $32 million domestically, more than double its production cost.
