The negative word-of-mouth around Warner Bros.’ “Joker: Folie à Deux” is already dealing big blows to its box office fortunes. After making just $11.1 million on Saturday — a drop from the $20.1 million earned Friday even after the $7 million from Thursday previews are removed — opening weekend estimates for this $190 million budget tentpole have now fallen to $39 million.
Not only is that below the $50-55 million pre-weekend projections and just 40% of the October record $96 million opening of the first “Joker” in 2019, but it is now nearly matching the $39 million opening of Sony’s maligned 2022 Marvel film “Morbius” and could slip even below that should walk-up ticket sales continue to sag.
Todd Phillips’ film, a courthouse drama with dream musical sequences, has seen its Rotten Tomatoes score fall to 33% critics and 31% audience. CinemaScore polls yielded a D, the lowest grade ever for a comic book film.
At this rate, it would not be surprising to see “Joker 2” fall below $10 million in its second weekend, given the recent trend of wide releases with poor audience scores falling off even faster than they did before the pandemic. Theaters are still doing better than they were last year with overall grosses still up, but they will have to do this month without a huge jolt similar to the ones they got from the opening weekends of “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” last year.
Better news is coming from the holdover titles in theaters such as Universal/DreamWorks’ “The Wild Robot,” which is holding very well with an $18.7 million second weekend, dropping just 48% from its $35 million opening. Enjoying both critical and audience acclaim, Chris Sanders’ animated adaption of Peter Brown’s YA novel.
With just under $64 million domestic and $100 million worldwide, “The Wild Robot” is on its way to enjoying weeks of sustained turnout as has been custom for most DreamWorks Animation titles.
Warner Bros.’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is in third, continuing to perform strongly in American theaters with $10.3 million grossed in its fifth weekend. As it inches closer to passing the domestic run of “Dune: Part Two” with $265 million grossed so far, “Beetlejuice 2” is combining with “Joker 2” to show the wild ups and downs Warner has faced this year, with several major hits like “Wonka” and “Dune 2” mixed with big disappointments like “Furiosa.”
Paramount/Hasbro’s “Transformers One” and Universal/Blumhouse’s “Speak No Evil” complete the top 5. “Transformers One” continues to falter against “Wild Robot” with $5.4 million in its third weekend, giving it a total of $47.2 million domestic and $97 million worldwide. “Speak No Evil” added $2.8 million in its fourth weekend, giving it a total of $32.5 million domestic and $67.4 million globally.
Outside the top 5 is Lionsgate’s “White Bird,” a sequel to the studio’s hit film “Wonder” that isn’t making anywhere near that title with just $1.53 million grossed from a targeted release of 1,018 theaters. Despite positive reception with a 73% Rotten Tomatoes score and an A+ on CinemaScore, the film is opening below “Sam and Colby: The Legends of the Paranormal,” a film from the titular Youtubers that is being released in just 300 Cinemark theaters and grossed $1.77 million for a $5,900 per theater average.
Finally, Mubi’s “The Substance” continues to perform respectably as an indie horror film despite losing 1,000 screens to “Joker 2,” grossing $1.4 million in its third weekend from just 700 locations as it is now on the doorstep of a $10 million cume.
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