Simply three months in the past, Hollywood was heading into awards season with the expectation that Todd Phillips’ “Joker: Folie à Deux” (learn /Movie’s evaluate) could be each a runaway blockbuster and a severe Oscar contender like its predecessor “Joker,” which was nominated for 11 Academy Awards. It had Joaquin Phoenix, considered one of Hollywood’s most formidable skills (and infamous flakes, as Todd Haynes would seemingly let you know) returning to the function that earned him the Finest Actor trophy, and a splashy franchise addition in Girl Gaga, whose wild-eyed variation on Joker’s love curiosity Harley Quinn was anticipated to get her within the working for her second Finest Actress nomination.
None of this got here to cross.
After opening weekend projections have been step by step downsized from $100 million to $45 million, “Joker: Folie à Deux” flopped in its first body on the field workplace with a paltry $38 million (whereas “Joker” made $40 million on its first day of launch in 2019). Critiques have been terrible, whereas moviegoers graded it a lethal D by way of pollster Cinemascore. After an 81% drop in its second weekend (the worst ever for a DC film), “Joker: Folie à Deux” vanished from the nation’s theaters, and the one clown that mattered in U.S. theaters for the remainder of the autumn was named Artwork.
The battered would-be blockbuster was so poisonous that it felt like it could be perpetually relegated to the dustbin of cinema, by no means to be mentioned once more. Nicely, it is a week earlier than Christmas, and I’ve some semi-cheery information for Phillips and his wound-licking cohorts.
The wait-to-stream crowd offers Joker: Folie à Deux a pyrrhic victory
In keeping with FlixPatrol, “Joker: Folie à Deux” is presently essentially the most streamed film on Max following its debut final week on the service. This implies it is even forward of the not too long ago added “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and yuletide favorites “Elf” and “Nationwide Lampoon’s Christmas Trip.”
Does this imply “Joker: Folie à Deux” may reverse its fortunes by turning into a late-breaking streaming smash? And, in that case, may a 3rd “Joker” film nonetheless be within the playing cards? God no. Even when the movie is primary on the service for a month or two (which ain’t gonna occur), there is no means the embattled, David Zaslav-mismanaged Warner Bros. will danger one other $200 million on one other go-round with Phoenix and Gaga (particularly because the ending of the sequel complicates what would possibly happen in a follow-up). For now, WB ought to get pleasure from this very minor victory, and deal with James Gunn’s new run of DC films (in addition to Matt Reeves’ sequel to “The Batman”). As a result of though lots of people are watching “Joker: Folie à Deux” at residence, they’re most likely simply as disenchanted by the ersatz musical as the remainder of us have been again in October.
