Whereas Todd Phillips’ 2019 Joker proved an unexpected box office hit, grossing over $1 billion worldwide and earning a pair of Academy Awards, its newly released sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, isn’t faring nearly as well.
It seems the film’s jukebox musical approach and shallow plot has failed to connect with critics and audiences alike. Beyond its aggregate 33% score on Rotten Tomatoes, Joker: Folie à Deux has just made history as the first comic book movie to earn a D grade from CinemaScore. The market research film measures general audience’s reaction to movies in theaters across the across, and also serves as a good barometer for a film’s word-of-mouth appeal moving forward. For comparison, its predecessor, Joker, received a B+ rating, while largely panned comic books films like The Flash (B), Catwoman (B), and Fant4stic (C-) all managed to receive better scores. Even Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis eked out a D+ rating.
Not surprisingly, the negative reviews are having an impact on Joker: Folie à Deux’s box office performance, which is now targeting a $50 million opening. That’s well short of the first Joker film, which opened to $96.2 million on its way to a global box office total of $1.07 billion. Adding insult to injury, the first Joker carried a budget of only $65 million, whereas Joker: Folie à Deux cost over $200 million to make.
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In her review of Joker: Folie à Deux for Consequence, Liz Shannon Miller praised Lady Gaga’s and Joaquin Phoenix’s performances, but said the film ultimately “falls apart due to its inability to express anything thematically substantial or original.”
