Box Office: As 'Joker 2' Flops, Warner Bros. Again Pins Their Non-'Batman' DC Comics Hopes On A 'Superman' Reboot

After 15 years of ups-and-downs, WB is again banking on a 'Superman' reboot to prove that it can successfully release any DC Comics flicks outside of 'Batman' movies

Another non-Batman DC dud.

Todd Phillips and Scott Silver’s Joker: Folie a Deux opened with $40 million in North America and $121 million worldwide. Warner Bros. Discovery’s Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga-starring sequel received miserable reviews and a D from CinemaScore, unprecedented for a prominent DC/Marvel movie. Its 2x weekend multiplier is on par with (the much bigger and fan-driven openings of) Batman v Superman and the various Twilight Saga sequels. Presuming it plays like other recent mega-bomb DC/Marvel movies (The Marvels, Morbius, Shazam 2, The Flash, Dark Phoenix, etc.), it’ll gross $72-$80 million domestic. Maybe it “legs out” like Fantastic Four ($56 million from a $25 million debut), which would put it at around $90 million. Barring unlikely post-debut legs, the $190 million-budgeted Joker 2 will earn less than the opening weekend of the $63 million-budgeted Joker and (barring an unlikely breakout in China next week) may likely struggle to top even $275 million globally.

Among other grim stats (-60% from Joker’s $96 million domestic debut), it sold about as many tickets in North America as Birds of Prey ($33 million in early 2020, $39 million adjusted for inflation), despite being a follow-up to a $1.08 billion-grossing smash *and* costing 2.3x as much as Cathy Yang’s $83 million, R-rated girl gang caper. It opened below the $46 million launch of The Marvels last November. Jokes about whether big movies about white males are now global box office poison will can wait for a later post. As a brand, DC Comics hasn’t had a non-Batman theatrical success — The Batman earned $770 million globally in early 2022 — since the first Joker (more closely tied to the Batman mythos) in October 2019. WB is now right back to where it started, hoping that a Superman reboot proves they can successfully sell a non-Batman DC flick to the masses.