Joker: Folie à Deux is having its last dance at the box office. After four weeks playing in theaters, the Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga-fronted musical sequel crossed the $200 million mark at the global box office this weekend. Domestically, Joker 2 grossed an extra $600,000 to bring its domestic cume to $57.8 million, per The-Numbers, for a cumulative total of $201.1 million worldwide. That’s a drop of about 72 percent from its third weekend of $2.1 million, when the Warner Bros. release had its theater count slashed from 4,102 theaters to 2,857 theaters.
With Joker 2 becoming available on digital this week, it remains on just 1,243 screens after 24 days of release. Its $37.6 million opening weekend was lower than superhero flops Morbius ($39 million), The Marvels ($46 million), and The Flash ($55 million), and the film suffered the worst drop ever for a comic book movie when it plunged 81 percent in its second weekend on Oct. 11.
To compare, the other R-rated comic book movie of the year, Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine, earned $211.4 million domestically in its opening weekend — surpassing Joker 2‘s lifetime total gross in just three days.
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Another underperforming comic book sequel, Venom: The Last Dance, waltzed into theaters this weekend and topped the box office with an estimated $51 million. That’s a series low opening below Black Adam, which disappointed when the DC movie opened with $67 million over this same weekend in 2022.
Joker 2 ranked in 11th place at the box office, earning less than Neon’s Anora ($867,000) in its second week and the LEGO-animated Pharrell Williams biopic Piece by Piece ($720,000), now in its third weekend in theaters. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — which has consistently outperformed Joker 2 despite being in theaters for twice as long — added another $3.2 million to its domestic tally of $288.7 million after 52 days in theaters. Sony’s Venom 3 took the No. 1 spot, bumping Paramount’s Smile 2 to second place with $9.4 million, while Focus’ new release Conclave opened in third place with $6.5 million.
Why did Joker 2 bomb at the box office? With a reported budget of $190 million — not including an additional $100 million in marketing and distribution costs — it would have needed to earn at least $450 million before breaking even. 2019’s Joker earned over $1 billion worldwide against a budget of about $70 million, but such numbers were out of reach for a sequel that was rejected by critics and audiences alike: Joker 2 is at 32% rotten on Rotten Tomatoes and received the worst grade ever for a comic book movie from opening night moviegoers polled by CinemaScore.
Joker: Folie à Deux will be available to watch at home just before Halloween and will debut on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on Dec. 17.