Joker: Folie a Deux punished by audiences with rare D slap and dismal box office

No one is laughing at Warner Bros, the studio which funded Joker: Folie a Deux’s reported $US190 million production budget.

Todd Phillip’s sequel to his controversial but commercially successful 2019 villain origin story has bombed at the box office. The follow-up grossed under $US40 million in North America, vastly underperforming its initial tracking of a $US70 million opening weekend.

As mixed-to-negative reviews trickled out of the film’s Venice Film Festival premiere and the release date neared, the box office expectations were lowered to the $US50 million to $US60 million range for its opening weekend. But it still failed to meet those moved goal posts.

Perhaps most punishing of all is the audience reaction to Joker: Folie a Deux. The movie was slapped with a rare Cinemascore of D on its opening night.

A Cinemastore is similar to exit polling in which American audiences are asked to rate the film they just saw. Cinemascores are usually high compared to critics’ reviews, especially for genre releases such as superhero blockbusters. Early audiences tend towards self-selected passionate fans who make a point of seeing the films as soon as they’re able to.

The D is the lowest Cinemascore ever assigned to a superhero/comic book movie. The previous record holder was the 2015 version of Fantastic Four, which had a C-.

More recent superhero movies that were dinged at the box office include Madame Web, which had scored a C+ and worldwide takings of $US100 million, and The Marvels which audiences gave a B and earnt a $US205 million global gross.

Some of the most hated comic book movies in the past decades including Catwoman and Green Lantern still managed a B Cinemascore.

Which makes a D Cinemascore particularly grim for Joker: Folie a Deux. It suggests the bad word-of-mouth and audience reaction among even rusted-on fans will lead to a higher drop-off rate in ticket sales for the second week.

Outside of superhero movies, the more high-profile titles that have been whacked with a D include M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, Movie 43, Ridley Scott’s The Counsellor, American Psycho, The Snowman, and Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Last week, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis earnt a D+ Cinemascore and has so far grossed $US8.5 million worldwide against a self-funded production budget of $US130 million.

Coppola must be feeling a strange camaraderie with Phillips. The veteran filmmaker posted to his Instagram, “Todd Phillips films always amaze me and I enjoy them thoroughly. Ever since the wonderful The Hangover, he’s always one step ahead of the audience, never doing what they expect. Congratulations to Joker: Folie a Deux!”

In international markets, Joker: Folie a Deux grossed $US81 million, in line with expectations.

Its fortunes are reversed from the first film which had a B+ Cinemascore and earnt $US96.2 million in the US before ultimately breaking through the $US1 billion mark from a budget of $US55 million. It won the Venice Film Festival’s top honours and claimed an Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix.

It was the top-grossing “R-rated” movie until Deadpool & Wolverine surpassed it this year. “R-rated” in the US is not equivalent to an Australian R classification. It is more comparable to an Australian MA15+ rating, which both Joker movies are locally.

On Rotten Tomatoes, Joker: Folie a Deux has a critics’ score of 33 per cent and an audience rating of 30 per cent. The 2019 Joker has a critics’ score of 68 per cent and an audience rating of 89 per cent.

Joker: Folie a Deux sees the return of Phoenix in the role of Arthur Fleck/Joker who is now facing murder charges for the five killings he committed in the first film. While awaiting trial at Arkham Asylum, he meets Harleen “Lee” Quinzel/Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga), who is besotted with Joker’s actions and the chaos he provoked.

The film is something of a love story, expressed through multiple musical numbers featuring Phoenix and Gaga singing covers of Get Happy, What the World Needs Now is Love and For Once In My Life.

The marketing has not emphasised its musical elements, similar to the campaigns for Wonka and the 2024 version of Mean Girls which downplayed or obscured that they were musicals.