{"id":993714,"date":"2026-01-08T06:44:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T06:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=461731"},"modified":"2026-01-08T06:44:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T06:44:23","slug":"joker-2-is-bombing-at-the-box-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/joker-2-is-bombing-at-the-box-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Joker 2 is bombing at the box office"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The original Joker<\/a><\/em>, released in 2019, was one of the biggest surprise hits in comic book movie history; a bizarre, darkly dramatic, totally-not-canon spinoff that somehow made over a billion dollars worldwide. Now it seems that the franchise is just destined for surprises, as its highly anticipated sequel, Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux<\/a><\/em>, has opened to terrible reviews and an even worse weekend at the box office<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The new film, which brings Joaquin Phoenix back as Arthur Fleck and adds Lady Gaga to the cast as Harley Quinn, opened to just $40 million in the United States over the weekend and only barely scraped by $100 million globally so far. By comparison, the original movie pulled in nearly $100 million domestically<\/a> in its first few days, while its international weekend capped at an astounding $247 million. <\/p>\n

This is a staggering drop between an original and a sequel with few comparisons in the comic book movie canon. But it\u2019s also not that surprising when you look at how the film has been received more broadly. While the first movie had a somewhat mixed reception critically, it generally trended toward positive, with a 68% critical aggregate on Rotten Tomatoes and an impressive 89% fan score. Meanwhile the second more has been excoriated on all sides, with a 33% from critics and a 31% from audiences, giving it the extremely rare dishonor of complete alignment between critics and fans. Perhaps even more explanatory of the movie\u2019s awful box office performance is the fact that it earn a \u201cD\u201d Cinema Score over the weekend \u2014 which polls viewers after they leave screenings in certain theaters \u2014the lowest by any comic book movie ever.<\/p>\n

The good news, if you can call it that, is that Joker\u2019s universe was already at a definitive end in the conclusion of Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux<\/em>. According to director Todd Phillips, this movie was his last foray into the DC Universe<\/a>, and there won\u2019t be any more movies in the series. Of course, this seems right in line with Warner Bros. plans as well, considering James Gunn\u2019s take on the DC cinematic universe<\/a> is set to begin next year with his new Superman movie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The original Joker, released in 2019, was one of the biggest surprise hits in comic book movie history; a bizarre, darkly dramatic, totally-not-canon spinoff that somehow made over a billion dollars worldwide. Now it seems that the franchise is just destined for surprises, as its highly anticipated sequel, Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux, has opened to terrible reviews and an even worse weekend at the box office. The new film, which brings Joaquin Phoenix back as Arthur Fleck and adds Lady Gaga to the cast as Harley Quinn, opened to just $40 million in the United States over the weekend and only barely scraped by $100 million globally so far. By comparison, the original movie pulled in nearly $100 million domestically in its first few days,…<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":993715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-993714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polygon"],"yoast_head":"\nJoker 2 is bombing at the box office | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The original Joker, released in 2019, was one of the biggest surprise hits in comic book movie history; a bizarre, darkly dramatic, totally-not-canon\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/joker-2-is-bombing-at-the-box-office\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Joker 2 is bombing at the box office | Arcader News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The original Joker, released in 2019, was one of the biggest surprise hits in comic book movie history; 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