Refresh for latest…: Warner Bros/DC’s and Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux clearly did not cause the hoped for frenzy at turnstiles in its opening this session.
While the Joaquin Phoenix/Lady Gaga-starrer came in with $81.1M at the international box office, which was within projections for this first wave of markets, domestic cratered. In both cases, most critical and social scores are seriously bad. The global debut was $121.1M. Japan and China are still to launch, but no one is expecting a big multiple.
Phillips’ 2019 Joker opened to $139M offshore in like-for-like markets, coming off the heat of its Venice Golden Lion win. With the sequel, the face paint was already somewhat on the wall after its own Venice world premiere last month resulted in low critical scores and social reaction. Note that the first Joker started off with middling reaction from critics, but went on to become an Oscar-winning $1B+ global box office phenomenon. This film will sadly not emulate that.
The Top 5 launch markets, all at No. 1, are the UK ($8M), Germany ($6.9M), Italy ($5.6M), Mexico ($5.5M) and France ($5M).
Word of mouth definitely hurt Folie à Deux overseas (France’s Allo Ciné has it at a 2.8 from critics and 2.4 from audiences versus the first movie’s 4.1 critical score and 4.4 audience note). It’s been suggested that had the film not gone to Venice and just opened on its own, it could have seen a bigger turnout in its debut.
Rivals tell us that while Phillips’ and WB’s gambit this time around was a bold swing, any creative misjudgment doesn’t mean the sky is falling on the industry. People are still psyched to go to the movies; the fanbase for this one just felt let down (there’s certainly a lot of vitriol out there). Here’s Anthony’s analysis on the domestic situation. And I’ll be back with more on international in just a bit.
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