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Warner Bros.’ Todd Phillips sequel Joker: Folie à Deux hit tracking with a $70M+ projection.
The studio, similar to what they did with the original 2019 movie, Joker, took the pic to the Venice Film Festival for a world premiere, however, critical reviews came back at 62% fresh. By the way, before we rush to judgement, the 2019 movie came away from its Venice and TIFF premiere 62% fresh with critics at the same point in time growing to 69%.
We hear the sequel is exactly what Phillips set out to make: a movie with musical elements. The question is whether the fans of the $1.1 billion grossing global movie want to see Arthur Fleck and Harley Quinn (here played by Lady Gaga) singing their character’s personal favorite hits. It does look wonderfully edgy.
Still, even at a $70M+ start, which would be $26M less than Joker‘s opening of $96.2M, that’s nothing to be ashamed of, and would rep arguably a record start for a live-feature musical that’s not a Disney movie (November 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody opened to $51M). At $70M, Joker 2 would be the seventh highest opening for a movie of all-time at the October domestic B.O. When the first Joker first played, it was so grim and serious in its tone (so not a willy nilly DC comic book movie) that there were fears that copycat crimes would be spurred from the feature, particularly post 2012’s Dark Knight Rises, and that people would be scared to attend. That did not happen, with Joker ultimately minting $335.4M domestic, $743.3M overseas. BTW, Gaga’s biggest opening belongs to her ultimate Oscar winner, A Star Is Born, also a Warner Bros movie, which debuted to $42.9M during the first weekend of October and legged out to $215.3M.
Joker: Folie à Deux in tracking looks similar to the first movie, strong with men over 25 (they showed up at 41% on part one). Unaided awareness is strongest with men over 25, followed men under 25 and women over 25. Presales are big in the cities now, I understand, which is provoking some exhibitors to forecast a $90M start. One rival marketing exec praises Warner Bros’ campaign as “brilliant” as they’re marketing the sequel like a Joker movie. No studio in their right mind this day and age markets a feature musical like a feature musical. I’m told when you have a movie musical, you gotta ‘trick’ moviegoers into going to see them.