Joker

Gaga Philosophical About JOKER 2

It is hard to think of a bigger movie-making disaster than Joker: Folie à Deux. Sure, Cleopatra nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox. John Carter is rumored to have lost around $250 million for Disney. The Joker sequel was different.

It came in as the sequel to an Oscar-winning, billion-dollar-grossing blockbuster. It had character recognition and a strong IP. It added one of the biggest-selling music stars in the world to the cast. It had buzz… until, suddenly, it didn’t.

It completely stalled on the launchpad, then somehow self-destructed. Nobody really saw it coming until it started to unfold before our eyes as some kind of cinematic, slow-motion trainwreck.

The negative reviews from its premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2024, were just the start. Five weeks ahead of release, Boxoffice Pro projected that the film would “easily” gross at least $100 million in its opening weekend in the United States and Canada and outgross its predecessor’s debut of $96.2 million.

Joker
“Look, down there, that’s our box office total…”

 

None of this happened. Projections just went down and down. The film’s opening weekend gross eventually came in behind other recent high-profile box office bombs such as The Marvels (2023) and Madame Web (2024). Eventually, it finished its run with a stack of negative reviews and a box office that barely broke $200 million globally.

Now co-star Lady Gaga, who starred as Harley Quinn, has spoken about the experience. She is no slouch in the acting arena, winning plaudits for television projects and being Oscar-nominated for A Star Is Born. Yet her performance was as savaged as the rest of the movie. In an interview with Elle (as reported by Dark Horizons) , she says:

“People just sometimes don’t like some things. It’s that simple. And I think to be an artist, you have to be willing for people to sometimes not like it. And you keep going even if something didn’t connect in the way that you intended.”

At least count, the movie could have cost Warner Bros. as much as $150 million in losses, with some estimates going higher. The movie is up for seven 45th Golden Raspberry Awards.

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