Could Joker: Folie à Deux Be The Highest Grossing Musical Of All Time? Here Are The Top Grossing Musicals Ever

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24/7 Wall St. Insights

• The first Joker made history as the first R-rated movie to gross $1 billion.
• Joker: Folie à Deux could set another record: the highest grossing musical of all time.
• Adjusted for inflation, the highest grossing musicals are a mix of 1960s stage musical adaptations, pop jukebox musicals, and modern music biopics.
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The first Joker was a smash success. The anti-anti-hero movie marketing campaign capitalized on both a dedicated DC fanbase and growing cultural anxieties surrounding the so-called incel crisis, imbuing the film with cultural currency that translated to ticket sales. Released in late 2019, Joker quickly rose to the top of the box office and made history as the first R-rated movie to gross $1 billion.

With Joker: Folie à Deux releasing wide tomorrow, the unlikely franchise has the potential to set another record: the highest grossing musical of all time. While people associated with the production have been careful not to spoil the film’s musical aspects, cast and crew have described the sequel as essentially a jukebox musical, and have cited Francis Ford Coppola’s One From The Heart and Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg as influences.

Based on early ticket sales, Folie à Deux is projected to gross about $60 million at the U.S. box office this weekend, putting it somewhat outside smash-success territory. But the first Joker far exceeded box office forecasts, making the sequel’s financial future difficult to predict.

To put this weekend into context, we compiled historical data on box office performance for live musicals. Adjusted for inflation, the list reveals a mix of 1960s stage musical adaptations, pop jukebox musicals, and modern music biopics.

To determine the top grossing musicals of all time, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed data on historical box office from The Numbers . Musicals were ranked based on total worldwide box office adjusted for inflation. Box office figures were adjusted for inflation using historical ticket price data from the National Association of Theatre Owners . Supplemental data on average IMDb user rating, Rotten Tomatoes audience score, and Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score are current as of October 2024.

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