Oct 7, 2024

"Joker 2" is no joke for Warner Bros.

Hope King

still photo from the film "Joker 2" where Joaquin Phoenix in costume is being dragged by police officers — A still from "Joker: Folie à Deux," which could just as easily be your friends dragging you to see the movie. Photo: Warner Bros. Ent.

Moviegoers handed "Joker: Folie à Deux" a D rating on CinemaScore — the worst grade ever earned by a major comic book movie.

Why it matters: Warner Bros., the studio behind the film, stands to lose a lot.

Producers reportedly dropped some $200 million on the sequel to the critically acclaimed first "Joker" from 2019.
But brutal reviews of the new movie stymied its domestic box office opening this past weekend. It pulled in just $40 million — well below projections of $50 million to $70 million.

What they're saying: "The movie didn't land with audiences the way we wanted it to," Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros.'s president of domestic distribution, told WSJ.

Other recent films from the studio also fell flat this year, including the much-hyped "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga."

On the bright side, "Joker: Folie à Deux" did much better in international markets, making $81.1 million in ticket sales.

And "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," the sequel to the 1988 classic, has continued to do well in theaters.

The big picture: Films are growing in importance for Warner Bros. Discovery, which just wrote down billions last quarter in the value of its traditional TV and cable business.

The division made up 28% of 2023 revenue, up from 26.8% in 2022, as its networks business declined 4.5 percentage points to 48.7%.

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"Joker 2" is no joke for Warner Bros.

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