08/10/2024
There has been a LOT of speculation about the new film "Joker: Folie à Deux" and its lackluster box office this past weekend. Some liked it, many didn't, and after roughly four days in theaters, it's already been declared a "bomb," which is a problem in Hollywood - the fast judgment by the media and the studio box office observers. But I will say that the stats have been so refined over the years that studios usually do have a pretty accurate sense of how a film will perform based on those first few days and audience reactions. But once you start CALLING a film a bomb, it's hard to change course or salvage it.
As for myself, I had no real interest in seeing the sequel. I didn't really want to see the first film, but eventually I did because Phoenix was nominated for an Oscar and I wanted to see if it was worth it. His performance was quite good, and I ended up liking the first film, more or less.
Why my reluctance? Simply put, Joker emerged in the aftermath of the DC/Snyderverse crash, in an era when we simply didn't know what was what - would we get another Affleck Batman movie? Was Cavill in or out? Was Snyder done? Would his universe continue, or get rebooted with the same characters?
And what was this new Batman film they were talking about, with Robert Pattinson? There were now THREE different DC movie universes in motion, and who knew what would survive or get cancelled. With that kind of uncertainty, I hesitated to invest my dollar, as the studio didn't seem to care about the audience and continued to mismanage the films.
Eventually Todd Phillips' Joker and Matt Reeves The Batman were both to continue as their own thing, in their own universes, so that was settled. Then DC rebooted their main "Justice League" Universe with James Gunn at the helm. So at least I finally felt there was a PLAN going ahead. They were no longer just throwing mixes at the wall, seeing what would stick.
I see Phillips' Joker sequel as having two problems: One, it was foolish to triple the budget from the first film. Yes, the first film made a billion at the box office, but the studio sees half of that. So on the first film, a $100+ million investment (70+promo) with a $500 mil return makes sense. But spend what probably amounted to close to $300 million (190+promo) on the new film??? Even under the best of circumstances and a box office that exceeds the first film, you really lower your profit margin. And from what everyone has said, Joker: Folie à Deux didn't look like triple the budget on screen.
Number two, and this is a big one - This isn't the Joker, at least not the Joker from the DC comics. Sure, it might be an alternate Joker in an alternate universe, but with much more realism and less super powers then the Snyderverse or Nolanverse. It's also a universe that takes Joker and Harley Quinn in a totally new direction, but also one that undermines all of their best and most entertaining attributes.
From what I understand, Phillips' intent was to subvert your expectations and show you that the "anti-hero" of the first film was no hero at all, and that sounds like a good plan. But to me it sounds like Joker: Folie à Deux, despite its best intentions, suffers from the same old Hollywood problem - more profit over creative narrative need.
Again, I haven't seen the movie, and I'm sure one day I will catch it streaming. Maybe I'll love it, who knows. But I find myself, yet again, wondering why, instead of three times the money, we didn't just get three more cool films by Phillips and others?
(For reference, the photo is of actor Conrad Veidt in character as Gwynplaine in the 1928 film "The Man Who Laughs," a primary inspiration for the original Joker character.)
