The numbers are coming in for Joker: Folie a Deux and aren’t pretty. It is one of the year’s most anticipated films, but terrible reviews and extremely poor word of mouth from fans are killing this musical sequel’s box office. Deadline reports that the opening weekend box office outlook for the film is in the $47 million-ish range, a deadly result for a $200 million budgeted would-be tentpole movie. That’s even less than the cautious $60 million we predicted earlier this week.
So how did we get here? Simple – fans REALLY don’t like director Todd Phillips’s sequel, and word of mouth is tanking the movie in a big way. The CinemaScore rating for this film is particularly dire, with it being the first ever comic book movie to earn a D rating. That’s a horrifically low rating, with even Francis Ford Coppola’s largely disliked bomb, Megalopolis, earning a D Plus.
One definitely has to wonder what possessed WB to green-light a musical sequel to Joker. I suppose the idea of pairing Lady Gaga with Joaquin Phoenix proved too enticing a prospect to turn down, but it can’t be denied that the idea has backfired. That said, Phillips is in good company here, with Martin Scorsese having his own musical flop with New York, New York back in 1977, and Coppola having One from the Heart in 1982. Musical flops seem to be a right of passage for big-time directors, don’t they?
Meanwhile, The Wild Robot will likely finish second this weekend with about $20 million. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, despite coming out on digital this Tuesday, had another strong weekend, with it on track for about $11.4 million and a third-place finish. It also looks like Lionsgate had another bomb on their hands, with White Bird (a prequel to Wonder) opening outside the top five with about $1.5-2 million.
How has audience turnout for Joker: Folie a Deux been at your screenings? Let us know in the comments!