‘Joker: Folie a Deux’ flops during opening weekend

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The second act of “Joker” has left audiences unamused, falling flat at the box office, sparking fan outrage over Lady Gaga’s limited screen time and earning a grim “D” CinemaScore – reportedly the lowest grade ever received by a comic book movie.

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While “Joker: Folie a Deux” topped the weekend box office, it earned a bleak domestic opening of $40 million in domestic ticket sales, according to reports. That figure is far behind 2019’s “Joker,” which set an October record with its domestic $96.2 million opening and went on to earn more than $1 billion globally.

In “Folie a Deux,” director Todd Phillips reunited with actor Joaquin Phoenix, in the titular anti-hero role, and enlisted Lady Gaga as his love interest and co-conspirator. The sequel finds Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) in custody at Arkham Asylum where he meets fellow inmate Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (Lady Gaga) – better known as Joker’s deranged sidekick, Harley Quinn – while awaiting trial for his murderous rampage in Gotham. Unlike the first film, “Folie a Deux” is a fantasy musical, featuring cover songs and original songs by Lady Gaga who released a companion album, “Harlequin” last month.

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The global pop star was heavily billed alongside Phoenix ahead of the movie’s premiere on Friday, and prerelease tracking last month projected the sequel would earn $70 million for Warner Bros. But that figure continually dropped over the weekend as audience turnout tapered off.

“Folie a Deux” fared better overseas where it opened to $81 million. In the coming weeks, it will also open in Japan and China.

Still, “Folie a Deux” has its work cut out for it. While Phillips told Variety that the movie cost less than $200 million to produce, a source familiar with the film’s financials told the trade publication that the sequel needs to make at least $450 million just to break even.

Based on estimated domestic ticket sales for Friday through Sunday, “The Wild Robot,” by Universal and DreamWorks Animation, earned second place in its second weekend with $18.7 million. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” took third place during its fifth weekend in theatres, Paramount’s “Transformers One” landed in fourth and Universal and Blumhouse’s “Speak No Evil” rounded out the top five. Final figures will be released Monday

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Not helping matters for “Joker: Folie a Deux” are the grim reviews pouring in from both critics and moviegoers who have slammed the film as “uneven,” “grim and boring” and “so bad it’s almost laughable.” As of Sunday, Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film held a low 33 percent rating based on 258 critics and a 31 percent audience score.

The Washington Post’s review from Ty Burr was more forgiving. Burr, who gave the film two and half stars, wrote: “It’s a movie of ideas disguised as an exceedingly grim entertainment, and it’s more interesting for those ideas, undeveloped though they are, than it is as entertainment.”

Still many Lady Gaga fans alike took aim at the film for underutilizing the actress’s talents. In particular, the singer’s fans lamented about her limited screen time amid reports claiming that the actress is featured for less than a quarter of the movie’s 139-minute run time.

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And others slammed the film for misleading promotional material and called for Warner Bros. to release an extended cut with scenes of Lady Gaga in the official trailer that they say were omitted from the final movie. “Why are majority of the visuals featuring @ladygaga in the trailer missing from the actual @jokermovie?!” one user wrote on X. “Release the Gaga cut!!”

Despite its reception, Lady Gaga and Phoenix could still be in contention during awards season. The singer earned her first Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2019. The following year, Phoenix won his first Oscar for his role in “Joker.”

Ahead of the movie’s release, Phillips told Empire Magazine that he and Phoenix originally envisioned “Joker” as a stand-alone film. This time around, the filmmaker is more insistent that he’s ready to move on from the Batman villain’s origin story. “It was fun to play in this sort of sandbox for two movies,” he told Variety, “but I think we’ve said what we wanted to say in this world.”

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