Warner Bros. Execs Reveal Surprising Reasons Behind Joker: Folie à Deux’s Box Office Struggle
Warner Bros. film bosses Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca are speaking out at last about Joker: Folie à Deux’s underwhelming box office debut, revealing why they think the sequel missed the mark with audiences—and why they’re still backing the film’s bold creative vision.
Well, here we go: Warner Bros. has finally come out and talked about what went wrong with Joker: Folie à Deux. If you were wondering why everyone's second-favorite nihilistic clown musical didn't blow the doors off the box office—or attract much love from critics or the Oscars—studio bosses Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca have some answers. And yes, they’re still defending the thing.
Creative Choices (and Maybe Too Many of Them)
In a new interview, Abdy and De Luca basically said, 'We stand by it,' even though the movie flopped. To quote Abdy:
'I really liked the movie. I still do.'
So, that's one studio chief sticking to her guns. De Luca, on the other hand, thinks maybe they zigged a little too hard when audiences wanted them to zag. He called the movie 'really revisionist'—which is a polite way of saying it wasn't what people expected or wanted.
New Direction, New Problems
If you skipped this one in theaters, here's what you missed: Folie à Deux picked up Joaquin Phoenix's sad-sack, wild-eyed Arthur Fleck and dropped him into a whole new experiment. Lady Gaga joined in as Harleen 'Lee' Quinzel, and instead of more of the moody crime drama from the first film, we got a mix of courtroom drama and... musical numbers. (The first Joker made a billion bucks and won Oscars for a straightforward but traumatic origin story. This movie spent big and then went weird.)
De Luca praised director Todd Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver for not simply hitting copy-paste on the original movie:
'They did the thing that most people making sequels don't do, which is they decided to not repeat themselves. I do give them immense props for not repeating themselves, but it just turned out to not connect with the audience.'
Props, but also... yikes.
The Hard Numbers
- Budget: Roughly $200 million (so, a LOT)
- Box office: Just $207 million worldwide (barely breaks even, if that)
- Critical response: Unfriendly
- Audience reaction: “No thanks”
- Oscar nominations: A big fat zero
- Release date: October 2024
‘Everyone Has Flops’ (And Sometimes Hits)
De Luca shrugged off the disappointment with a little wisdom only Hollywood veterans get to earn the hard way: 'You get a veteran's thick skin. Everyone has flops, but not everyone has hits. You just try not to torture the ones that don't work.'
It's a reminder: even big studios eat crow sometimes, and there’s no guarantee that throwing money at a successful title gets you a sequel worth bragging about.
Meanwhile, Back at the Batcave...
Here’s an interesting twist: Warner Bros. didn’t let Folie à Deux drag them down, at least not for long. By 2025 they'd already pumped out a bunch of crowd-pleasers (A Minecraft Movie, Sinners, Superman, Weapons), and now they've got another horse—One Battle After Another—out in front for a Best Picture Oscar.
So, maybe not every big swing is a home run, but at least they keep swinging. It’s Hollywood, after all.