Joaquin Phoenix stars as Arthur Fleck in “Joker: Folie a Deux.”
- "Joker: Folie a Deux" tallied just $40 million in domestic ticket sales during its opening weekend.
- It's predecessor, "Joker" earned $96.2 million during its domestic opening in 2019.
- While the first film had a modest budget of $65 million and topped $1 billion at the global box office, "Folie a Deux" had a much bigger budget of $200 million.
Audiences got the last laugh at the box office this weekend.
"Joker: Folie a Deux" stumbled to just $40 million in domestic ticket sales during its opening weekend, a far cry from the $96.2 million its predecessor brought in during its debut in 2019.
Just last month, the film was expected to haul-in closer to $70 million, but as reviews poured in, that estimated figure slumped to around $50 million.
Get top local stories in Southern California delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC LA's News Headlines newsletter.
"The creative risk that 'Joker: Folie a Deux' took is commendable, but very tough critical reviews as well as a mixed moviegoer reaction made for a challenging marketplace environment that rendered an otherwise respectable $40 million domestic debut a disappointment when balanced against the film's massive, reported budget and huge across the board expectations," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
Director Todd Phillips' first "Joker" tallied a whopping $1.07 billion at the global box office five years ago on a modest budget of around $65 million. Its sequel carried a $200 million production price tag, not inlcuding marketing efforts.
Audiences and critics applauded Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga's performances in "Folie a Deux," but they felt the story had too many ideas and not enough plot.
Money Report
"The decision to turn the sequel into a musical-slash-courtroom-drama is as perplexing as it sounds — and the results are so bad, they're actually fascinating," wrote Adam Nayman in his review of the film for The Ringer.
At present, "Folie a Deux" carries a 33% score on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes from 258 critical reviews and 31% audience score from more than 2,500 moviegoer reviews.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Rotten Tomatoes.
