Box Office: 'Joker: Folie à Deux' Stumbles With Unfunny $7M Thursday

The first 'Joker' earned $13.3 million in previews toward a $96 million weekend, so this suggests a domestic debut closer to $51 million.

Todd Phillips and Scott Silvers’ Joker: Folie à Deux earned an underwhelming $7 million in Thursday previews (counting earlier preview showings), compared to a $13.3 million advance-night gross for the previous Joker on this weekend five years ago. That buzzy, controversial and comparatively subversive comic book-based character study/action-lite drama would open with $96 million domestically. It opened after a month of decent reviews, Oscar buzz, a Golden Bear from the Venice Film Festival and an endless supply of free media courtesy of journalists and pundits clutching their pearls and swearing that it would inspire a wave of mass shootings and riots nationwide. The sequel opens after a month of… nothing but mediocre reviews arguing that the film was terrible, boring and not what anyone (comic fans, Little Monsters or theater nerds) wanted or expected from the pitch.  

Many a tentpole can survive poor reviews, but reviews arguing that the film doesn’t contain even the essential elements promised in the pitch or the marketing can be fatal. Imagine a Jurassic World that goes out of its way to avoid Imax-friendly adventure and folks being chased by dinosaurs or a Transformers sequel that barely has giant robots fighting each other. In this case, the early word was that it was not the bouncy, over-the-top, genre-challenging R-rated musical crime dramedy but an aggressively dull courtroom drama. Add in the film’s existence in a year where almost every major Marvel/DC comic book movie (the R-rated Deadpool & Wolverine, Venom: The Last Dance, Madame Web, the R-rated Kraven, even the unauthorized The People’s Joker, etc.) qualifies as “rebellious in a conformist sort of way.”  

Joker earned 13.8% of its opening weekend via Thursday previews, which suggests a $50.5 million opening weekend. Legs like The Marvels ($48 million from a $6.6 million Thursday) would give Joker 2 $51 million for its Fri-Sun debut. Will poor buzz mean less of a “gotta see it right now” factor (so slightly leggier over the weekend)? Or will the miserable reaction mean more of the existing demand was accounted for last night (even more frontloaded for the weekend)? I can’t imagine it’s the former, but let’s be nice and note that an 11% Thursday-to-Sunday split would be a $64 million opening weekend. But an over/under 20% Thursday-to-Sunday split like the (still successful, natch) Twilight sequels, the later Harry Potter flicks and Dark Knight Rises would give Joker 2 just $35 million for the weekend. 

The mere prospect of Warner Bros. Discovery’s Joker 2 set it up as one of those sequels that underwhelmed because “Sorry, folks were only curious the first time.” Think, offhand, The Smurfs 2 and Prince Caspian. It also was almost always likely to be a follow-up to a massive overperformer that “disappointed” by only earning about what was expected from the first flick. Think of the still-successful likes of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Ted 2 and Neighbors 2. The addition of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn and promises that it would be essentially the first Marvel/DC comic book musical — an R-rated one, no less — inspired hope that it might buck the odds or at least end up in the realm of “successful disappointments” like Secret Life of Pets 2.  

We could see another Alice Through the Looking Glass-type drop (from $1.025 billion for Alice in Wonderland in 2010 to $299 million for its follow-up in 2016). This unprecedented in-its-day performance now gets repeated semi-regularly (Aquaman 2 and The Marvels just last year), with all eyes now focused on Mufasa 5.5 years after the $1.67 billion-grossing The Lion King. Two critical caveats: The biggest problem is Joker 2 opening way below Joker on nearly triple the previous film’s $62 million budget. Meanwhile, its reception is not simply what Joker 2 is (a musical dramedy starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga) but how poorly it achieves those goals (not a full-on, rebellious musical romp but an audience-punishing finger-wag with low-energy American Songbook renditions). It is not what it’s about, but how it’s about it.