Box Office: Where 'Joker 2' Ranks Among Hollywood's Biggest Sequel Flameouts

In raw dollar loss and percentage drops from a successful predecessor, Folie à Deux is A) near the top and B) might have proven profitable had it kept its budget in check.

Joker: Folie a Deux dropped 81.4% in its second domestic weekend, nabbing a new milestone for any *new release* film playing in over 2,300 theaters. The Phantom Menace’s 25th-anniversary release dropped 83.5% in weekend two just this past May. Regarding second weekend drops for anything qualifying as a “big” release, it bested the 80% plunge of Friday the 13^th. The slasher revamp earned $8 million in weekend two following a $40.5 million Fri-Sun/$43.5 million Fri-Mon President’s Day weekend in 2009.  

While Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes is my prime example of a less IP-obsessed time when studios could look at success ($320 million worldwide on a $100 million budget in 2001) and still know that they shouldn’t push their luck, both the Friday the 13th remake and the Nightmare on Elm Street remake ($115 million worldwide in 2010 on a $35 million budget) also qualify. Hollywood is offered no such grace in the 2020s, with I.P. being treated as “Can’t stop/Won’t Stop” revenue sources. Hence, a prototypical of-the-moment “folks were only curious the first time” one-and-done blockbuster like Joker gets a sequel. 

If Joker 2 follows suit, we’re looking at -- being intentionally optimistic -- a $65 million domestic and (with just $1.3 million on its first day in China with a poor 5.9 audience score on Douban) a $235 million global finish. Compared to Joker ($336 million domestic and $1.08 billion worldwide), that would be an unadjusted dollar decline of $271 million domestic/$845 million worldwide and a percentage drop of (noting that Joker was at the time the top earning movie never to play in China) 81% domestic and 78% worldwide.  

So, where does this measure up or down in terms of freefalling sequels? The raw dollar amount is easy, but the percentage drop is slightly more complicated.