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SATURDAY AM: “This isn’t a box office marketplace problem, this is a creative development problem,” declared one movie marketing vet this weekend over Warner Bros‘ bold swing with a foul, Joker: Folie à Deux which at a production cost of $190M+ net is coming in way below projections at $47M…or less. Friday was $20M (which includes previews). Off that figure, industry projections are predicting a landslide today for the Todd Phillips directed sequel, down some 20%.
The fear nowadays in some executive corridors is that the headlines for a tentpole that’s bombed is some nefarious harbinger for the end of theatrical, particularly after it’s been rattled by Covid and dual strikes.
Um, no, think again.
People are still interested in going to the movies evident in how the industry reduced the deficit with the 2023 B.O. from -20% at the start of summer to a current -11%. You think R-rated comic-book movies don’t work? Look at what Deadpool & Wolverine did at $1.3 billion worldwide unseating 2019’s Joker ($1.1B) to become the highest grossing R-rated movie of all-time.
The failure of Joker: Folie à Deux is as clear as an azure of deepest summer: No fan of the original of movie wanted to see a musical sequel, Mr. Phillips. Period.
There isn’t enough lipstick to put on this Joker to indicate that it’s any kind of a win: The original fans of this film –which let’s face it are fan boys and men because they bought tickets at 60%– kicked this clown to the street with a D CinemaScore and a half star on PostTrak. Anyone feeling Megalopolis deja vu from last weekend, you’re not imagining things. That movie received a D+ CinemaScore. The difference here of course is that Warners spent more marketing than Zoetrope and Lionsgate to get this Joaquin Phoenix-Lady Gaga sequel to some cultural global relevance.
No amount of clever marketing (not selling the pic as a musical; selling it as a Joker film) could save this. The biggest promotional cardinal sin of them all: Launching this sequel which didn’t have the goods at the Venice Film Festival. Why would any studio put a movie out there, particularly with the awful audience scores below, and let it sit on Rotten Tomatoes for a month with bad reviews? Sources tell me it was all part of Warner Bros appeasing Phillips, which is why they allowed him to make this auteur-ish Stephen Sondheim-like feature in the first place. Between the Hangover franchise and Joker, Warners has reaped $2.5 billion off of Phillips fare at the box office. What do you do with a director whose done that much for you? Give him final cut. Joker 2 was put into development by the previous Toby Emmerich administration and continued to be supported by the current Michael De Luca-Pamela Abdy era at the Warner Bros Motion Picture Studio. The movie isn’t part of DC Studios’ phase one Gods and Monsters.
Which leads us to the production cost. Some say $200M, we believe it’s at $190M. However, how the hell did a budget for a movie which doesn’t have jack-knife trailer truck stunt ala Dark Knight, and arguably little CGI, mushroom from its original’s cost of around $70M (and that had major co-financiers at the time in Village Roadshow and Bron, each taking 25% share) to $190M+? If the budget doubled to $140M, that’s one thing. But clearly who was minding the production ledger here during the David Zaslav job-cutting, cost-cutting, cash-flow-apalooza at Warner Bros Discovery? Sources tell me that between Phillips, Gaga and Pheonix, they repped $50M of cost.
Let’s not fault Warners and Phillips for breaking the boundaries of cinema. God bless ’em, they made the $168M Furiosa earlier this year which only yielded $173.3M global. No one wanted a Mad Max spinoff sans Charlize Theron, but damn, if that George Miller movie wasn’t the second coming of Sergio Leone stylistically. But if you’re gonna go crazy, and pretentiously title your film Folie a Deux, which also means in moviegoer language “stay away” — you’re gonna lose cash, and you’re gonna lose butts in seats. It’s not bad movies — it’s bad budgets as I’ve written before. The original Joker made
Also keep this in mind in regards to budget spend to box office dollars. Joker 2 is opening in the range of other non Disney live action musicals at the box office, read Gaga’s October 2018 Oscar winning A Star Is Born ($42.9M) and it’s a few million less than Bohemian Rhapsody ($51M). Here’s what’s interesting about Joker 2: While moviegoers clearly didn’t want to see a musical version of the Taxi Driver-inspired 2019 movie, the sequel works best when it’s a Bonnie and Clyde-Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers love dovey extravaganza. Joker 2 drags immensely when it’s a court drama. By comparison, Joker 2 makes Paul Newman’s 5x Oscar-nominated The Verdict look like Speed with Keanu Reeves. If Warners truly leaned into the musical aspect of the movie, put the pedal to the metal in attracting women, and at a lower cost — who knows, perhaps the cost-revenue ratio would be different. I’m told that if Warners sat on Joker 2 and skipped Venice, unveiling fully earlier this week, we could be possibly looking at another $10M in its stateside ticket sales.
Ya want some good news in all of this? The weekend box office is at $100M, which is +8% from last weekend, and a 21% surge over the same frame a year ago.
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FRIDAY PM: As of this minute, Todd Phillips’ audacious Joker: Folie à Deux is looking at an OK Friday of $20M, including last night’s $7M, and hoping to stay above $50M but could sink to $45M at 4,102 theaters. Numbers-wise, even though it was a PG-13 movie, this looks far too similar to The Marvels, which posted $6.6M previews, a $21.6M first day and disastrous 3-day of $46.1M. That movie actually was more expensive than Joker 2, $270M to $190M. The fear is that the bad word-of-mouth on this movie will make it increasingly frontloaded with a freefall on Saturday.
RelishMix noticed good social media metrics with the pic’s follower reach at 567.3M across TikTok, YouTube, X, Instagram and Facebook, which is 7% above superhero genre norms before opening. Lady Gaga’s fans across all platforms clocked 231.3M fans with 43.7M views feeding into her Instagram. However, the bad buzz post-Venice, where the movie clocked 62% fresh with critics on RT, seeped into presales, which were heard were not amazing ahead of opening.
Elsewhere, Universal’s DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot at 3,997 venues is seeing a second Friday of $4.9M and a second weekend of $19.5M, -46%, for a 10-day of $64.7M.
Warner Bros. has better luck this weekend with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at 3,576 sites, which will continue to hold in Weekend 5 at -30%. It’s posting a 3-day of $11.4M after a near-$3M Friday for a running total by Sunday of $266.5M, still the second-highest-grossing movie of September behind 2017’s It ($327.4M).
Fourth belongs to Paramount’s Transformers One at 3,106 locations with a third Friday of $1.35M, third weekend of $5.5M, -40% and a running total of $47.4M.
Fifth is Universal/Blumhouse’s fourth weekend of Speak No Evil at 2,274 sites, with $900K today, a 3-day of $3M, -30% for a running total of $32.7M.
Outside the top 5 is Lionsgate’s misfire White Bird with $650K today, and $1.5M-$2M opening for the weekend.
FRIDAY AM: Warner Bros’ Todd Phillips-directed sequel Joker: Folie à Deux earned $7M in previews that began at 3 p.m. Thursday. The number indicates that the $190M+ movie could get to a $50M opening, particularly when comped against movies that exceeded that threshold in their starts such as Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part One ($7M last year), No Time to Die ($6.3M in 2021) and John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum ($5.9M in 2019).
Forget about the fact that Joker 2‘s previews are off by 47% from the first 2019 film’s $13.3M, which mushroomed to a $39.3M Friday and the biggest October domestic opening of all time with $96.2M. We knew that was going to happen.
What’s not funny is the Comscore/Screen Engine PostTrak audience exits for Joker 2, which tell a different story.
While many knew this Joaquin Phoenix-Lady Gaga combo would be challenged due to the fact that it’s a musical, the fanboys full-out rejected the sequel last night on PostTrak with a 1/2 star and 40% positive. Holy guacamole, Batman. Did the Megalopolis cynics show up last night? Because that’s the same Thursday night grade (actually 45% positive) that the Francis Ford Coppola-directed $120M dystopian epic received a week ago before inching up to one star on PostTrak. Or, wait, did PostTrak switch up the reports? Lionsgate’s Helen Mirren movie White Bird received five stars last night! That feature take on R.J. Palacio’s novel, which is a sequel and prequel to Wonder, is only expected to make $2M this weekend on 1,018 theaters after a $275K Thursday night. Reviews for the movie stand at 72% on Rotten Tomatoes.
A very low 24% say they’ll definitely recommend Joker 2 to their friends. God knows what this means for the sequel’s stability throughout the weekend. RT audience score for Joker 2 also is in the gutter at 36%, with critical reviews plummeting from 62% fresh to 39% Rotten.
BTW, CinemaScore exits usually are more gentle than PostTrak, but God knows where that will be. Megalopolis received a D+ last weekend. Also, Joker 2‘s previews are $400K higher than the $6.6M The Marvels, which fell apart with a $46.1M opening last November — the lowest ever for a Marvel Studios Disney title.
Rest of the week was as follows:
1.) The Wild Robot (Uni) 3,962 theaters, Thu $2M (+9% from Wednesday), Wk $45M/Wk 1
2.) Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (WB) 3,804 theaters, Thu $972K (-12%), Wk $20.9M, Total $255M/Wk 4
3.) Transformers One (Par) 3,970 (-8) theaters, Thu $602k (-1%), Wk $11.9M, Total $41.7M/Wk 2
4.) Speak No Evil (Uni) 2,971 (-704) theaters, Thu $287K (-28%), Wk $5.9M, Total $29.7M/Wk 3
5.) Devara Part 1 (Prath) 1,040 theaters, Thu $78K (-40%), Wk $5.57M/Wk 1
6.) Megalopolis (LG) 1,854 theaters, Thu $233K (-34%), Wk $5.4M/Wk 1
