Why did Joker 2 lose so much money? And how on earth did it even cost so much? | Joker: Folie à Deux

To quote Heath Ledger's take on the Clown Prince of Crime, perhaps some wit should write, “Why so serious?” in the glass-fronted offices at Warner Bros. Discovery this week as executives there discuss the box office hit of “Joker: Folie à Deux.” ” ponder. A disastrous opening weekend of $37.7 million, the biggest second weekend drop for a DC film (81%), worldwide grosses currently sit at a paltry $165 million… How does the studio compare to the original by 2019, which was worth billions in sales at the time, was over? Is this the highest-earning R-rated film?

Last but not least, the Joker lives up to his reputation as an agent of chaos. But he's also the most popular comic book villain in a storied series; a draw almost equal to Batman himself, which makes the catastrophe all the more unimaginable. According to word of mouth, Joker: Folie à Deux is expected to lose $125 million to $200 million, depending on whose budget estimate you believe. If it's the $300 million that's widely touted for production and marketing, then that's clearly what stymied the film. So it would take up to $475 million to break even. Risky reinterpretations of sacred pop culture icons are much more feasible with the first film's reasonable budget of $60 million.

$300 million is a shocking sum. The money has increased on screen in the sense that director Todd Phillips and lead actor Joaquin Phoenix both received $20 million and supporting actress Lady Gaga received $12 million; over a quarter of the $200 million production budget. But aside from the beautiful lighting, cinematography and climax sequence, the film doesn't feel overly elaborate. Since it's an isolated affair, set largely in Arkham State Hospital and the courtroom, there's virtually nothing to explain the expense of extensive CGI pyrotechnics. The most likely explanation is that it was a big bet born of pandemic desperation for surefire success in reopening theaters.

It seems doubly shocking considering that Phillips and Phoenix decided to turn the film into a musical – supposedly initially as a Broadway play. (The original's stair dance probably should have served as a warning.) Even on paper, the genre doesn't promise the kind of return the budget demands, unless you're a children's cartoon. And the sideways step from realism to a drag musical with a broken voice was probably never going to appeal to the original's core audience of Joker fans, let alone the bitter incel quotient whose concerns it channeled. They also can't imagine that Lady Gaga – as good as she is in the role – is anything like what they've come to expect from previous psycho-hot portrayals of Harley Quinn.

It's not Phillips and Phoenix's fault that their top-heavy jamboree landed on the wrong side of the superhero slump that has plagued both DC and Marvel. It also didn't lose the lightning-in-a-bottle factor when Joker showed up in 2019, right in the middle of Trump's presidency. Applying references to Scorsese's toxic masculinity classics “Taxi Driver” and “King of Comedy” like an Instagram filter, it came across as an exploitation flick delighting in themes of emasculation and oppression, vicarious living through entertainment and the potential of demagoguery. But it is precisely with these couples that the dark sequel struggles to ignite similar energies for much of its running time. It's all about a horny deconstruction of the Joker's personality and bombarding the audience with more superficial arguments about America's addiction to fame.

Phillips apparently wanted to make a course correction after being accused of indulging in toxic fandom in the first film. The fact that Arthur Fleck definitely dismisses the Joker as a pathetic psychological crutch definitely gets his point across.

But punishing the fan base so openly would be tantamount to box office self-harm (probably why the director refused to screen Joker: Folie à Deux). The impunity of a $300 million budget appears to have led Phillips to mistakenly believe the film to be an auteur, and filming during a period of regime change at both Warner and DC reportedly allowed him to film with weak supervision operate. According to Variety, he refused to engage with new DC bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran, saying, “With all due respect to them, this is kind of a Warner Bros movie.” But he also rejected the new one's suggestions Warner President David Zaslav decided to make budget cuts, including moving filming to London instead of Los Angeles.

The film's crash will have repercussions for the still-struggling DC and beyond. This kind of overly conceptual approach will certainly be banned in blockbusters for some time, and one wonders if it will force more conservative reimaginings of other recurring icons, particularly Bond. It's another question whether this almighty flop will give Hollywood pause for thought about pressuring beloved intellectual property until it runs out of juice. Could Phillips' sluggishness in converting realism to expressionism have something to do with the fact that this is the Joker's fifth major appearance in just over 15 years?

Perhaps, given his 1970s lodestars, Phillips currently views the Folie à Deux debacle as a major act of subversion within the corporate studio system; The insane take over the institution, in the style of the anarchic BBS troupe of Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider. Or maybe the mood and message of the film just came a few months too early. It has its powerful moments: Fleck's final outburst of involuntary laughter, even after abandoning his alter ego, suggests a deep, incurable violence that lies within America's sternum. If Trump is elected or Harris contests the presidency, Phillips' banquet of cold psychological vomit could be in dire jeopardy. Would that still be considered the last laugh?