The huge box office difference between

Joaquin Phoenix, Todd Phillips, Lady Gaga—almost foolproof. That failed.

Joker: Folie à Deux’s first weekend numbers suggest a major disappointment, especially given its predecessor’s success. Before ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’, ‘Joker’ was the highest-grossing ‘R’ film and the first to surpass $1 billion.

Top film, but not great. Interestingly, the film was the most-watched at the international box office, earning $81.1 million in its first weekend. It earned $40 million in the US, below expectations of $50 , which were already disappointing. These numbers are good, but Todd Phillips’ $200 million film must make money. The disappointment is even greater when compared to the first part: $65 million. According to reports, this sequel should earn $450 million.

Bad press. The film’s reception by critics and the public has been disappointing, unlike the first installment, which did not please all critics but won the Oscar that year. Cinemascore (the influential study firm that gives scores based on surveys and box office) gave it a very low D, while the first one got a B+, placing it far below films like ‘Batman v Superman’, ‘Flash‘, and ‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’, which also got B grades. Since Cinemascore began, only 36 films have received a lower grade (although the list shows that some were of variable quality and unfairly rejected).

Low marks. Marvel films like ‘The Marvels’ and ‘Quantummania’, which already had a lot of hate from the start, had a disappointing reception. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film 33% from critics and 31% from users, reflecting its poor reception.

What if Joker isn’t a good saga character? It’s natural to wonder what happened when seemingly infallible elements came together in this sequel. That is, Todd Phillips (who signed the first ‘Joker’ and starred in ‘The Hangover‘), Joaquin Phoenix (who won an Oscar for his performance in the first installment), or Lady Gaga. Where does disappointment come from?

Musical curse. After seeing it, Warner has been ambivalent about calling the film a musical, and Lady Gaga herself avoided the term, even though ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ is a musical. Despite its quality and songs, it’s a style that’s rejected, especially by the film’s audience:

Only read the comments on that post to see that first-part fans oppose the genre change.Is anyone laughing? Given the poor reception to Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie a Deux, the follow-up to his $1 billion hit Joker (2019), which was nominated for 11 Oscars and won best actor and best original score, few are. A sequel with Phoenix as Joker/Arthur Fleck and Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn seemed like one of Hollywood’s safest bets this year, despite Joker not setting up a sequel.

Fans of the first have been disappointed and betrayed by the sequel. The film is sluggish, the jukebox tunes are mostly mid-20th century hits with multiple reprises, and Phillips shows a lack of commitment to cinematic musicals (and an unexpected commitment to ’70s variety shows).

There’s no right or wrong way to feel about it or the film. My perspective on Joker: Folie a Deux is not a defence, but a way to view the film. That helps contextualise the film’s best moment, the ending. *Crickets.* Is this on?

Arthur Fleck renounces his Joker persona to the court at the end of the film, realising he was not a rallying cry but a man who knew what he was doing. The nobody wanted to be loved and be somebody. This statement angers his followers, and Lee breaks up with him. She wanted Joker, not Fleck. Back at Arkham, Fleck sits, no longer laughing or joking, thinking only of the love he found and lost, when one of the guards, Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson), tells him he has a visitor and leads him to the reception area.

An inmate we’ve seen throughout the film stops Fleck, never speaking and only watching him and the reactions he gets from other inmates and citizens at his televised trial with seriousness. In the first film, Joker told Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro): “You get what you fuckin deserve.” The inmate tells Fleck the same joke. The inmate repeatedly stabs Fleck in the abdomen. The prisoner sits out of focus as Fleck bleeds out on the asylum floor, trying out different laughs before carving a Glasgow smile into his face with the blade he used to kill Fleck. As Arthur Fleck dies, the inmate laughs deep, cold, and bloody. The Joker is born after a death.

The huge box office difference between

Joaquin Phoenix, Todd Phillips, Lady Gaga—almost foolproof. That failed.

By b0oua

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