‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Lands On Three-Week Tracking With U.S. $70M+ Opening – Box Office

Warner Bros.’ Todd Phillips sequel Joker: Folie à Deux hit tracking with a $70M+ projection.

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The studio, similar to what they did with the original 2019 movie, Joker, took the pic to the Venice Film Festival for a world premiere, however, critical reviews came back at 62% fresh. By the way, before we rush to judgement, the 2019 movie came away from its Venice and TIFF premiere 62% fresh with critics at the same point in time growing to 69%.

We hear the sequel is exactly what Phillips set out to make: a movie with musical elements. The question is whether the fans of the $1.1 billion grossing global movie want to see Arthur Fleck and Harley Quinn (here played by Lady Gaga) singing their character’s personal favorite hits. It does look wonderfully edgy.

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Still, even at a $70M+ start, which would be $26M less than Joker ‘s opening of $96.2M, that’s nothing to be ashamed of, and would rep arguably a record start for a live-feature musical that’s not a Disney movie (November 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody opened to $51M). At $70M, Joker 2 would be the seventh highest opening for a movie of all-time at the October domestic B.O. When the first Joker first played, it was so grim and serious in its tone (so not a willy nilly DC comic book movie) that there were fears that copycat crimes would be spurred from the feature, particularly post 2012’s Dark Knight Rises , and that people would be scared to attend. That did not happen, with Joker ultimately minting $335.4M domestic, $743.3M overseas. BTW, Gaga’s biggest opening belongs to her ultimate Oscar winner, A Star Is Born, also a Warner Bros movie, which debuted to $42.9M during the first weekend of October and legged out to $215.3M.

Joker: Folie à Deux in tracking looks similar to the first movie, strong with men over 25 (they showed up at 41% on part one). Unaided awareness is strongest with men over 25, followed men under 25 and women over 25. Presales are big in the cities now, I understand, which is provoking some exhibitors to forecast a $90M start. One rival marketing exec praises Warner Bros’ campaign as “brilliant” as they’re marketing the sequel like a Joker movie. No studio in their right mind this day and age markets a feature musical like a feature musical. I’m told when you have a movie musical, you gotta ‘trick’ moviegoers into going to see them.

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