Seems like it's as deserving of this thread as any in a while

It didn’t know or didn’t like its audience

Pretty much everything lol

The trailers were strong, had this been well received it should have been big. Playing it early in Venice really killed any hype it had. The movie honestly isn't awful imo but I just don't think it has anything that hits like the first one did. They should have just left it alone, especially with what they decided to do with the ending. The movie especially doesn't work for its audience because Joker the character is kinda lame as opposed to the larger than life persona people are drawn to.

Todd Phillips struck gold with the first, but he just isn't a great director. Some KJ member said something similar a few weeks back. "This is the guy that made The Hangover, he isn't a top director" and that he just happened to get lucky with the first. It seems DC gave him carte blanche when they shouldn't have.

The audience probably just wanted reverse Batman Begins with the sequel being "Joker in his prime", a villain terrorizing Gotham, and even if Batman is too young in this one, they have some other good guy go after him.

The Harley move sounded cool when they first announced it, but it just didn't look as good in execution. It didn't look either romantic or sexual due to the franchise's dour tone, and as mentioned Phillips lack of talent probably caught up to them in terms of being capable of pulling off a true left turn.

Then DC's recent performance didn't help, even if it's an untraditional superhero franchise.

Horrible script and execution. Plus as i said posted in the other thread, should not have spent so much money and never make a movie that will piss off the very audience who liked the 1st one. I think Philips wanted to go for a shock factor again doing something different and burnt all bridges. Sadly I dont expect WB to learn anything from this fiasco. I could see this miss 60m domestic the way the reactions are looking.

Agreed here, especialy the bold.

Welcome, Freddy. :

-Took too long, this needed to be out 2022 in Black Adam's spot. 5 years is a long to retain cultural relevance.

-The concept was inherently flawed. The story needed a much stronger premise that could be advertised to justify the films existence.

-The marketing was the horrible aside from the initial trailer. As noted above, they were not given a ton of material to work with, but still. The trailers needed Gaga's belting out high notes and showing real presence. Completely, entirely MIA.

-The quality sucked, and because it premiered in Venice, everyone knew about it far too soon.

I think in the simplest terms it paradoxed itself out. As it was the first movie was this strange beast that (if you'll excuse me) walked a lot of lines. It was a comic book franchise movie springing from just about the most mined IP. But it was also a down to earth, self-contained, very glum story. But for all its prestige, its reviews were on the mixed side. The first time around, this was kind of its strength as it made it tallked about, and everyone had to see it for themselves.

But now all these contradictions are cancelling each other out, with the addition of Lady Gag and the musical elements and the deconstructing the deconstruction. If Phillips stuck the landing it might have exploded but what it seems is a huge case of neither fish nor fowl. Too much of a cash grab, not enough of a crowd-pleaser.

I think in the simplest terms it paradoxed itself out. As it was the first movie was this strange beast that (if you'll excuse me) walked a lot of lines. It was a comic book franchise movie springing from just about the most mined IP. But it was also a down to earth, self-contained, very glum story. But for all its prestige, its reviews were on the mixed side. The first time around, this was kind of its strength as it made it tallked about, and everyone had to see it for themselves.

But now all these contradictions are cancelling each other out, with the addition of Lady Gag and the musical elements and the deconstructing the deconstruction. If Phillips stuck the landing it might have exploded but what it seems is a huge case of neither fish nor fowl. Too much of a cash grab, not enough of a crowd-pleaser.

Still going to take some time for the dust to settle but Horizon's box office shifted down as bad buzz came out of Cannes. Joker 2 bad buzz came out of Venice.

So are these festivals some of the biggest losers out of this mess? If I were a studio not 100% sure on a film's reception, feels like the risk is far too big here for big budget films to premiere there and ruin their box office runs. Seems like the tide turned very quickly on both.

Now two high profile cases of bad receptions at festivals.

Nah, the festivals are fine. WB is just brain dead and should’ve learned from Dial of Destiny last year.

What I don’t get is that if your marketing is going to hide the fact it’s a musical, why show it months in advance at a festival? That’s asking for trouble even if the movie is good because the audience for this doesn’t want a *musical. They should’ve kicked Phillips and Phoenix out of the room when they suggested that, but they couldn’t because of the first one and then wasted $200+ million. And why hire Lady Gaga and barely show her singing in the marketing?

*I’m starting to think Phillips and Phoenix knew this/they thought there shouldn’t be a sequel and went in thinking WB would reject the pitch and that would be their way out. Instead WB was all too glad to make any idea and then Phillips wrote and made a film from a place of contempt (he didn’t try to make a bad film though the subtitle makes me second guess this) for the audience and the studio all while making $20 million. Lana Wachowski kind of did the same thing making Matrix Resurrections, except she’s a much better filmmaker and that’s a damn good movie.

This weekend has been fascinating to follow and the closest I’ve paid attention to the box office in years. Watching the meltdown on Reddit has been a blast.

Ishtar
Waterworld
Joker 2

Through the Looking Glass and The Marvels don’t even come close. Those films are long forgotten. Joker made a billion dollars and was nominated for 11 Oscars.

Oooh, very interesting theory. The pessimist in me can really start to believe that.



Gladiator II will be another member to this club later this year.

Gladiator 2 will be saved from this fate by Denzel's fans. They show up so reliably there's still a floor there probably of $90M+ even in a worst case scenario. They see him in everything non-indie awards bait.

- Five year wait was clearly too long, the first was a product of its time and popular culture has changed
- It looked boring in the trailers, barely any action, plot unclear, no money shots, no sense that it was the Joker becoming a criminal mastermind who will eventually face Batman (that's what people actually would've liked to see)
- Venice premiere killed the hype in multiple ways: mixed reviews; reveal that it was indeed a musical; reveal that it was a courtroom drama rehashing the first movie with no stakes
- Arguably was in deep trouble the moment they decided to make it a musical-esque film, the audience from the first one has zero interest in that, Gaga was also probably the wrong casting, ASIB and Gucci were hits with a primarily female audience, Joker was a different audience with little overlap
- Beetlejuice stole its hype as the big budget event horror-esque-themed movie of the season
- Comic book fatigue and rejection after years of mediocre crap
- WOM spreads like wildfire these days because everyone is so online and this is probably the #1 reason. Everyone knew it sucked before it was even out

If you think about it, this $40m opening is probably the right mark for even the first movie. It's just that it exceeded expectations so much and was inflated by perfect storm circumstances, so when the sequel came around we had inflated expectations. A grounded Joker movie with no Batman and essentially about mental health, plus no references to the wider comic book world ... an opening of $40m would be about right.

Plus I reckon the title being so pretentious did not help. Phillips thought he was making a mood-based arty flick when the audience was expecting a narrative-driven dramatic continuation of the first.

Everything went wrong, who predicted Joker to open below Morbious?

Joker was at H$285 on HSX meaning people expected it to make $285M in its first 4 weeks of release up until the last week of August. For it to possibly miss $70M has to be the most dramatic box office miss I can recall seeing.

In a strange way, this almost feels like the opposite of a zeitgeist movie from the original where people had to see it to be aware of the watercooler conversation. Now people are not seeing it and making fun of its run on social media in droves.

Huge surprising bomb!

#1 reason is Todd sucks at making sequels

Damn, yeah, below Morbius is another level of suck. Where are the memes???

Phillips and Phoenix wanted this to go to Broadway…

I like my theory better, but turns out they just like the smell of their own shit. I knew they were pretentious assholes, but that’s something else.

Phillips also apparently insisted this premiere at Venice.

Phillips just Snyder’d himself out of big budget theatrical filmmaking. He’s now off to Netflix/Amazon purgatory for the rest of his career making his versions of Ricky Stanicky. He probably should’ve already been there ten years ago.

Makes me think, who will be brave enough to play the Joker next? It's sad but this whole fiasco has tainted the original film and Joaquin's performance even if it should standalone and if it won him the Oscar, going to be tough not to tie that in with this.

The spin is also coming full swing on Phillips. https://variety.com/2024/film/news/joke ... 236170946/



Also didn't realize Bradley Cooper and Phillips dissolved their partnership in 2021 so Phillips may have gotten far too cocky here and distanced himself from everyone. Seemed to backfire on him based on that Variety article.

Joaquin will probably deal with less brunt on this than Phillips it's looking like.

I can't wait to see its 3rd weekend theater drop.

I better see Joker 2 in theatres fast if I want to