As if the opening weekend box office numbers were bad enough for “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the second weekend record that was set is even more embarrassing. Now, after a rough 10 days in theaters, there is now an estimate of how much money Warner Bros. is going to lose from Todd Phillips’ bomb. And it’s perhaps the most embarrassing of all.
According to Variety, box office experts predict that “Joker: Folie à Deux” will lose somewhere between $150 million and $200 million by the time it leaves theaters. That would easily set it up to be one of the biggest bombs of 2024, if not the biggest.
To break the number down even more, “Joker: Folie à Deux” cost the studio a reported $190 million to produce, and another $100 million was spent on advertising. According to box office experts, the film is only expected to bring in roughly $215 million globally by the end of its run. When you take into consideration that the studio splits that number with the theaters, it doesn’t bode well for the ‘Joker’ sequel.
Thankfully, it would appear that Todd Phillips didn’t have any desire to make a third ‘Joker’ film already. So, it’s not like this is a franchise that was expected to run for years. It was a bit of a miracle to get the second film in front of cameras, anyway.
So, what caused all of these issues? The big problem is the film just isn’t very good. Even when you strip away the controversial musical numbers, people are still not pleased with “Joker: Folie à Deux” in any way. Making matters even worse is the fact that word-of-mouth was abysmal after an already embarrassingly low opening weekend. The film opened really low and then dropped a shocking 81% in its second weekend. Ouch.
If you still want to see “Joker: Folie à Deux,” you have some time left, as the film is currently still in theaters. For now, at least.