As a long-time movie enthusiast and someone who has witnessed the ebb and flow of the box office landscape, I find myself rather dismayed by the recent performances of some films, particularly those from Sony Pictures Classics. It seems they have yet to learn that the release strategy of launching arthouse titles in 500+ theaters immediately is not always the recipe for success.
It seems like it would be quite beneficial for Joaquin Phoenix to have a film directed by Todd Haynes lined up for release next year, given the success he’s experiencing right now, doesn’t it?
Back in the day, it didn’t feel too far-fetched to think that Joker: Folie a Deux could outshine its predecessor’s record-breaking $97 million domestic debut. But boy, did times change! What was fresh and appealing in 2019 turned out to be a flop in 2024. This Joker sequel, with a hefty price tag of $190-$200 million, fell way short of even the modest $50-60 million opening weekend predictions. Instead, Joker: Folie a Deux debuted to a paltry $40 million in North America, barely beating Morbius’ domestic debut by a million dollars. To add salt to the wound, it only managed to make $6 million more than Birds of Prey, which cost significantly less to produce. And guess what? It even had a worse opening weekend than Batman & Robin! As a gamer, I’m still in shock about this one.
Due to earning $20.6 million on its first day, the controversial imitation of “The People’s Joker” managed to generate 51.5% of its entire opening weekend revenue on that very first day. This makes it the 33rd most frontloaded wide-release opening weekend in cinema history, excluding foreign-language films and movies debuting over the weekend before Christmas. Specifically, “Folie a Deux” ranked as the 24th most frontloaded wide release premiere ever. After subtracting $7 million from its Thursday night previews, “Folie a Deux” saw a concerning drop of 12% from Friday to Saturday. The word of mouth among audiences regarding this film is extremely negative. Lastly, the domestic opening weekend earnings for “Folie a Deux” were only slightly higher than those of the opening day for “Joker“. Unfortunately, the bad news continues to pile up for this movie.
Folie a Deux” faced challenges in replicating the phenomenal success of its predecessor. Introducing Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn (previously known as Lee) was seen as a potential solution to reduce financial losses. Unfortunately, early negative reviews dampened the anticipation for the film. Additionally, the marketing strategy didn’t effectively distinguish “Folie a Deux” from its predecessor. Furthermore, the audience reactions to this sequel were less than favorable, resulting in it receiving an unprecedented D grade from CinemaScore – the lowest ever for a comic book adaptation. The negative word-of-mouth surrounding the project caused it to flop at the box office.
Despite personal opinions about it (I must admit, I’m undecided myself), the 2019 film Joker provided audiences with a fresh take on typical comic book adaptations. Amidst three grandiose PG-13 releases from Marvel Studios that year, Joker’s R-rated narrative offered a distinctive (yet, undeniably influenced by Martin Scorsese) viewpoint within this genre. This uniqueness helped it stand out in the market. The studio executives could have leveraged this success to invite talented filmmakers such as Dee Rees, Karyn Kusama, The Daniels, and others to create innovative concepts. Joker demonstrated that unforeseen hits can emerge from anywhere. However, instead of capitalizing on this, the Warner Bros. leadership under David Zaslav announced a Joker sequel as one of their initial major projects. Repeating the success of an unexpected, transgressive hit is challenging because the element of surprise has been lost.
Looking back, this endeavor appears to have been overly ambitious, a reflection of Hollywood drawing incorrect conclusions from box office successes. The public seems upset in cinemas nationwide, upon discovering that the sequel to Joker, titled “Joker: Folie a Deux,” is a musical. These reports also emphasize the need for transparency in marketing musicals as such. Regrettably, this film continues a series of disappointments for Warner Bros. Studios in 2024. Excluding two films produced by Legendary Pictures (“Dune: Part Two” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire”), WB’s only release for the year is “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” With no significant titles scheduled for the remainder of 2024, the studio may struggle to surpass $1.2 billion domestically, potentially making 2024 the least profitable Warner Bros. year at the domestic box office since 2006, excluding the 2020-2022 period.
I’m just a bimbo from Texas who isn’t good at math. However, it seems doubtful recently shelved/discarded Warner Bros. movies costing under $100 million like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme would’ve been less financially or critically disastrous for the studio than having the Warner Bros. logo attached to The Flash, Horizon: An American Saga- Part One, and now Joker: Folie a Deux. Hey, at least the Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme creative teams, not to mention Todd Haynes, can get a good laugh at this weekend’s box office schadenfreude.
In contrast to Joker: Folie a Deux, which was a significant flop in the 2024 box office, The Wild Robot managed to earn an additional $18.7 million during its second week, marking a 48% decrease from its opening weekend. This decline is slightly more substantial than similar animated family films released around the same time last year, such as Abominable, Smallfoot, and the initial two Hotel Transylvania installments. Despite this dip, The Wild Robot has amassed an impressive total domestic gross of $63.98 million in just ten days. It’s likely that it will reclaim the top spot at the domestic box office next weekend.
Weekend after weekend, the success of “Beetlejuice” remains impressive as it dropped by only 36%, earning an additional $10.3 million. Now standing at $265.5 million in total, this box office sensation is expected to conclude its domestic run with a total close to or slightly over $290 million.
Speak No Evil persists in its unanticipated long-lasting performance, earning an additional $2.8 million last weekend, representing only a 34% decrease from the previous week. To date, this film has amassed $32.5 million domestically, which is still a modest sum for a Blumhouse production. Nevertheless, its final domestic earnings (expected to be around $37-39 million) won’t be far off from pre-COVID Blumhouse films like Truth or Dare and Ma.
Approximately four years after its initial release, “White Bird: A Wonder Story” finally graced movie theaters, with Lionsgate seemingly releasing this spin-off without much fanfare. The film’s marketing campaign was almost non-existent, and it was only opened in a modest 1,018 theaters. Consequently, its debut earned just $1.53 million. This could potentially be one of the largest drops in domestic opening weekends between installments in a franchise when compared to the original “Wonder” which launched with $27.5 million. The idea of expanding the “Wonder” universe in such a strained manner was always questionable. Lionsgate waited far too long to capitalize on the success of the original film, and they were similarly slow in releasing this feature at a reasonable time compared to when filming began. Overall, this production turned out to be a confusing venture that received a quiet start at the box office.
On the thrilling ride of “The Substance” at the box office, I’m delighted to report that it managed to bring in another $1.34 million this weekend, despite losing 1,026 screens. This resilient film has now grossed over $9.7 million domestically and is expected to cross the $10 million mark today. With its strong momentum, it seems destined to end its domestic run in the $13-14 million range.
The city-based movie “Megalopolis” had a terrible start and continued to struggle during its second week, dropping by 74%. This resulted in a $1.05 million earnings this frame and a total of $6.48 million over ten days. The comedy film “My Old Self” fell by 58% this week, which is unusually high for an independent movie. It brought in another $908,376, raising its domestic total to $4.51 million.
The blockbuster film “Monster Summer” flopped miserably at its premiere, generating a paltry $614,000 from 1,193 cinemas, which equates to about $515 per theater. If you’ve never heard of this low-budget family horror flick starring Mel Gibson, it’s no wonder – its disappointing opening will surely send chills down the spines of “Monster Summer” investors. Once again, Sony Pictures Classics has experienced a flop with one of their releases, this time with “The Outrun,” which opened in 508 cinemas and earned $334,249, averaging $657 per theater. One has to wonder when Sony Classics will change their strategy of immediately launching arthouse titles in over 500 theaters before they see better results. On a positive note, “Saturday Night” expanded to 21 theaters this weekend and made a strong $280,000, averaging an impressive $13,333 per theater. With a total of $638,000 over ten days, “Saturday Night” is performing well so far. However, we’ll have to wait and see how it fares when it begins playing outside of New York and Los Angeles next week.
Title “A Different Man” expanded to 265 cinemas and earned a total of $186,401, translating to an average of $703 per cinema. After 17 days in domestic release, this remarkable dark comedy is finding it challenging to reach the $1 million mark domestically. Meanwhile, GKIDS debuted “Look Back” in two locations this weekend. Directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama, it grossed $72,724, averaging $36,362 per cinema. “Leap of Faith” opened in seven theaters and earned $31,530, equating to an average of $4,504 per theater. Another new release, “Daaali!”, grossed $3,200 in seven cinemas, averaging $457 per cinema. Lastly, “Separated” opened in a single theater and earned $8,766.
This past weekend, the highest earning films only managed to bring in a relatively small $82 million, which is significantly less than many previous domestic October weekends. In fact, these earnings fell below those of the opening weekend for October 2010, during which “The Social Network,” a film with much lower production costs, earned $22.4 million. The earnings from this past weekend were also lower than what was collected during October 6-8, 2017. That weekend was marked by another underperforming R-rated sequel from Warner Bros., “Blade Runner 2049.
Other significant new films stepped aside to make way for the release of Joker: Folie a Deux. The major studios anticipated it would be another blockbuster hit. Given that Venom, which opened in early October 2018, earned $85 million and left space for A Star is Born to debut at $45 million, this decision to move the release was clearly irrational. Now, cinemas are feeling the consequences as all major studios have staked their claims on Joker: Folie a Deux. It’s true that this weekend saw an increase compared to the first weekend of October last year, when The Exorcist: Believer underperformed. However, boosting the dismal numbers by 33% is hardly something to boast about.
After six days, the film “Venom: The Last Dance” has earned just $105 million in October 2024. This isn’t a great beginning for the month, as the last two Octobers each grossed over $500 million domestically. Reaching that sum this year might be difficult if “Venom: The Last Dance” doesn’t perform well. It’s disappointing when so much depends on a few comic book blockbusters. For the sake of movie theater owners and staff, let’s hope the rest of October’s new releases do better than the box office flop that is “Joker: Folie a Deux” this weekend.
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2024-10-07 19:15