There’s going to be some heads rolling at Warner Bros. Pictures on Monday as “Joker: Folie A Deux” following the film’s disastrous domestic debut. The film was projected to take in around $100-120 million in mid-August, those projections kept getting lowered as we got closer to release.
Early yesterday those numbers suggested a $47 million start, but that was before the film plunged 45% from opening day on Saturday. Now, with the numbers in, the film is coming in with a domestic weekend debut of just $39 million. That’s on par with infamous Sony flop “Morbius”.
It’s also one of the lowest sequel openings in memory to a major franchise film based on a comic-book, and staggeringly lower than its predecessor which debuted to $96.2 million. Internationally the news is relatively similar – the film pulled in $81.
1 million in overseas markets, down considerably from the $140.5 million debut of the first film. Fingers are now being pointed – one strong suggestion being the film should not have gone to Venice, and just opened on its own with reviews held until release – then it would’ve seen a bigger debut.
Outside of this film, “The Wild Robot” came in second with $18.7 million – a drop of 48% from its debut. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was third with $10.
3 million and has hit $400 million worldwide, “Transformers One” was fourth with $5.4 million, and “Speak No Evil” fifth with $32.6 million.
Lionsgate is continuing their streak of box-office.