‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Faces Troubling News Even Before Its Release With Significantly Lower Predicted Opening

We’re only a few days away from the release of ‘Joker: Folie à Deux,’ the sequel to the 2019 film ‘Joker.’ Set two years after the events of the first movie, Joaquin Phoenix returns as the Joker, and this time, Lady Gaga joins the cast as Harley Quinn.

The film had its official premiere on September 4 at the Venice Film Festival, a month prior to its theatrical release. The review embargo was lifted quickly, and the first reactions to the movie were not positive.

The movie currently stands at a 59% approval rate when it comes to the critics, the audience score is not yet available, but the initial reactions to the movie being a musical likewise don’t promise much.

The first movie had similar critic reactions at release but still managed to be a huge hit for the studio.

‘Joker’ earned $335.5 million in the United States and Canada and $743.5 million in other territories, totaling $1.079 billion worldwide. It ranks as the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2019 and the second-highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, being the first R-rated film to surpass the billion-dollar mark until ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’ this year.

With its low budget and strong box office performance, ‘Joker’ is still the most profitable comic book film ever.

‘Joker 2’ already found itself in a worse position. ‘Joker 2’ is expected to earn $140M domestically. The projected domestic opening for the film has been revised down to $55 million to $60 million across 4,000 U.S. theaters, utilizing IMAX and PLF screens. This is a decrease from the original forecast of over $70 million based on three-week tracking, according to Deadline.

This means that the movie is expected to earn around $100M less than the first installment, which wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it didn’t have 4X the budget of the first movie. According to Deadline’s report, the movie had a net production cost of $190M+.

This isn’t bad box office, don’t get me wrong, but with the movie being a musical, low presale number, and generally bad reactions to it, it’s unlikely that the sequel will manage to come even close to the success of the original movie.

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