Warner Bros are not having a great weekend. Alongside Salem’s Lot looking very much like the victim of their famous top-down meddling, now one of their big hopes for the year has cratered. After +$100 million projections back in the summer, Joker: Folie A Deux has had a disastrous debut weekend at the box office.
How disastrous? Well, after the first movie made over $1 billion, this sequel is currently doing Morbius numbers. That movie was a notorious flop that helped kill the SPUMC.
Early signs pointed to a $47 million start, but then the take plunged 45% from opening day to day two. This suggests the bulk of the audience who were going to see it already went on the first day, and it is only downhill from here.
The domestic weekend opening total is now sitting at just $39 million. This is against nearly $100 million for the first movie. Internationally it is also running way below the first movie, with $81.1 million in overseas markets, vs. $140.5 million for Joker.
Elsewhere at the box office, The Wild Robot came in second with $18.7 million, down 48% from its debut. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was third with $10.3 million, and passed the $400 million mark globally.
Transformers One continued to disappoint Paramount with $5.4 million in fourth, then Speak No Evil in fifth with $32.6 million.
Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is looking at a near total 75% collapse in its second weekend to only score around $1 million.
There are going to be a few really, really interesting meetings at Warner Bros. this morning.