As Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux According to forecasts that aired three weeks ago, the Warner Bros. film’s theatrical opening will be $70 million – $26 million less than the previous installment five years ago, but still a respectable sum. Since then, forecasts have fallen to between $50 million and $60 million.

Why the drop?

The polarizing R-rated film, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival to mixed reviews, is a genre-bending, music-infused sequel that moves outside the comfort zone of the typical fanboy-fueled comic book pic. During 2019 joker Compared to Martin Scorsese’s previous works, the sequel is a much slower journey that focuses on the inner lives of the two leads. Critics praised the film’s overall beauty, its performances, and its artistry, but criticized it for its narrative. “For a film that lasts two and a half hours, film For two feels a bit narratively thin and boring at times,” he wrote The Hollywood Reporter Chief film critic David Rooney from Venice.

This could all be confusing at first glance jokers target audience and help explain the decline in tracking and lower than expected ticket sales. Regardless of its box office, the film is expected to play a major role in the Oscar race.

Overseas, Joker 2 opens this weekend everywhere except Japan and China, where it launches in the coming weeks. Warners is hoping for a foreign debut of $80 million to $85 million.

Joker: Foil for two reunites Phillips with Joaquin Phoenix, who returns in the title role after winning the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Arthur Fleck/Joker. Published in 2019, joker The film opened to a massive $96.2 million domestically and was on track to gross a record-breaking $1 billion at the global box office. He made Phillips and Phoenix heroes on the Warner Bros. lot and earned them enough goodwill to experiment with the sequel.

In fact, neither Phillips nor Phoenix were sure about doing a sequel and thought about putting on a Broadway show instead for a while before finally settling on the film.

The first joker Production before marketing only cost $55 million. Following its success, Phillips received a net production budget of $190–200 million for the second part. Part of that went into bringing Lady Gaga on board in a role inspired by the comic book character Harley Quinn (the filmmakers hope she will attract female moviegoers).

Joker and Harley are known for their toxic love affair in the comics of the title Slide for two Referring to the medical term for an identical or similar mental disorder that affects two or more people. Much of the film consists of fantasy musicals starring the couple, who meet while Arthur awaits trial at Arkham Asylum for his crimes from the first film. But neither Warners nor Phillips are comfortable calling it a straight musical, since only two of the characters sing, unlike a traditional musical, which typically has dozens of people taking part in the numbers.

The studio’s marketing materials, as well as sales, refrained from highlighting the film’s numerous musical sequences Wonkaan official musical. Warners is not alone; Paramount didn’t market either Mean Girls as a musical.

In any case, Phillips is well aware that the sequel is unorthodox in that it doesn’t quite follow on from the end of jokerin which Arthur embraces his alter ego.

At the premiere in Los Angeles on Monday, Phillips thanked the studio “for this bold step” and added, “It’s not necessarily the sequel you’d expect.”