S Poddar
It is showing all signs of turning into a box office disappointment as indicated by earlier reports of losing as much as $200 million after the highly-promised Joker: Folie à Deux, which features Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. However, despite all the buzz surrounding the sequel of the original Joker, its general lack of positive reviews from the critics in addition to its dismal box office reception has led to the second poor performance by the film.
According to Variety, a report has unveiled the fact that industry executives were projecting Joker: Folie à Deux only to rake $65 million in North America, and reportedly it will gross about $215 million internationally. The total comes down to a rather paltry sum of $280 million. That does not even suffice to meet the projected costs for producing and marketing the film, which is said to stand at about $300 million. Furthermore, netting out revenue sharing with theaters, this sort of film would need to gross something in the order of $450 million just to break-even; Warner Bros., meanwhile claims that $375 million will suffice.
Regarding recouping some of the losses, the film is set to be released digitally as well as for home entertainment on October 29. In the meantime, audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes have bottomed out at a mere 32%, thus providing one more testament to its lackluster box office results. Current estimates range the movie in costing producers between $125 million and $200 million. However, Warner Bros dismissed this projection, stating: “Any estimates suggested by anonymous ‘insiders’ or ‘rival executives’ are grossly wrong and continue a trend where rumor is reported as fact.”
This comes against the backdrop of such great success that the same film, however did see with its first part, which also starred Phoenix and was headed by Todd Phillips as its director. The original became a critical success when it was released in 2019, which won the festival’s top prize known as Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and earned an Oscar for Best Actor for Phoenix. It also did very well at the box office, fetching around $1.08 billion globally with $335 million in North America.
Whereas the sequel seems to have failed for multiple reasons, one of the primary criticisms regarding the creative choice of Phillips is related to it. After the unexpected success of the first Joker, a significant amount of creative control on the sequel was received by Phillips, and according to some, it alienated the key audience segment. The move to make Folie à Deux a musical, starring alongside pop darling Lady Gaga, seems to have alienated comic book film’s fanboys—who are a movie’s lifeblood in this genre.
Box office editor for Screen International Charles Gant believes turning away from what worked for The Cabin in the Woods may have been “Phillips’ actual undoing.”. He says, “The mantra in Hollywood is always to offer audiences the same, but different. With Joker: Folie à Deux, it seems Todd Phillips offered the wrong kind of different. The core audience got the message that it wasn’t just the movie is starkly different from the first movie, but also people liked the first Joker for the wrong reasons. As a general rule, people are not queuing up to spend cash money to get told off. Whether or not that’s a fair summary of what Folie à Deux actually delivers has become irrelevant – it’s the message fans have received.”
In addition, the total cinema is going through what some have termed “superhero fatigue.” The once unconquerable box office triumph of comic book movies is now in a downward spiral. Movies like Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom ($434 million worldwide) and The Marvels ($200 million worldwide) have performed extremely poorly, except for the exceptions – like Deadpool and Wolverine, which managed to rake in $1.33 billion worldwide.
Moreover, increased production costs are one of the causes of the dollar losses in the sequel. Each of the stars, like Phoenix and Phillips, apparently took an enormous $20 million paycheck from the movie, and Lady Gaga pocketed an astonishing $12 million for her role in it. Such hefty paychecks and other expenses did a lot to strain the budget.
In addition, these negative reports are scaring away potential audiences to the film, which further plunges it into financial troubles. He concludes, “The movie now looks like it is caught up in some sort of doom spiral. The rumors of its flop are frightening off the bigger audiences needed to help check the bleeding on the balance sheet. In fact, Folie à Deux has some fans, and among IMDb users who have rated it to date, 18% gave it 8, 9, or 10. Well, yes, that is a minority, but those marks don’t quite add up to what has become a stigma of absolute failure.”
Now that Joker: Folie à Deux has finally got a release date, though it promises nothing but bleak prospects at the box office, there still exists a dedicated core of fans who appreciate this film. Only time will tell whether it achieves enough momentum to be pulled out of the hole it’s in, or will it join the infamous list of Hollywood’s worst miscalculations on film.
