‘Joker 2’ stumbles at box office amid poor reviews from audiences and critics

nypost.com:

“Joker: Folie à Deux” is the No. 1 movie at the box office, but it might not be destined for a happy ending.In a turn of events that only Arthur Fleck would find funny, the follow-up to Todd Phillips’ 2019 origin story about the Batman villain opened in theaters nationwide this weekend to a muted $40 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, less than half that of its predecessor.The collapse was swift and has many in the industry wondering: How did the highly anticipated sequel to an Oscar-winning, billion-dollar film with the same creative team go wrong?Just three weeks ago, tracking services pegged the movie for a $70 million debut, which would still have been down a fair amount from “Joker’s” record-breaking $96.2 million launch in Oct.

2019.Reviews were mixed out of the Venice Film Festival, where it premiered in competition like the first movie and even got a 12-minute standing ovation.But the homecoming glow was short-lived, and the fragile foundation would crumble in the coming weeks with its Rotten Tomatoes score dropping from 63% at Venice to 33% by its first weekend in theaters.Perhaps even more surprising were the audience reviews: Ticket buyers polled on opening night gave the film a deadly D CinemaScore.Exit polls from PostTrak weren’t any better.

It got a meager half star out of five possible.“That’s a double whammy that’s very difficult to recover from,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “The biggest issue of all is the reported budget.

A $40 or $50 million opening for a less expensive movie would be a solid debut.”“Joker: Folie à Deux” cost at least twice as much as the first film to produce, though reported figures vary at exactly how pricey it was to make.