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No One’s Laughing Now: ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Falls Down With $39M Opening: How The Sequel Went Sideways – Sunday Box Office

'Joker: Folie à Deux' is bombing at the box office with a $39M opening.

However, how the hell did a budget for a movie which doesn’t have jack-knife trailer truck stunt ala Dark Knight, and arguably little CGI, mushroom from its original’s cost of around $70M (and that had major co-financiers at the time in Village Roadshow and Bron, each taking 25% share) to $190M+? More nice things to say in the middle of this maelstrom: for a Hollywood studio whose previous administration went theatrical-day-and-date on HBO Max during Covid with its feature slate, thus ticking off the town, let the record show that full creative and financial freedom was given here to a filmmaker to make the movie that he wanted. Here’s what’s interesting about Joker 2: While moviegoers clearly didn’t want to see a musical version of the Taxi Driver-inspired 2019 movie, the sequel works best when it’s a Bonnie and Clyde-Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers lovey-dovey extravaganza.

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