- Joker 2 still struggling at the box office
- Earns lower CinemaScore than Megalopolis
- 33% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes
Joker 2 isn’t having the best time at the box office as the Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga-fronted sequel continues to hit new milestones – and not ones to be proud of.
Original Joker director Todd Phillips returns for the follow-up, with Joker: Folie à Deux finally hitting cinemas on 4 October after riding a hype wave. The release followed a preview at September’s Venice Film Festival which yielded mixed results from critics and added further pressure on the film to succeed.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to have happened, with Joker 2 currently holding a 33% critic and 31% audience score on movie review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
These lowly scores place it just a few critic-notches above Sony’s infamous spider-flop Madame Web which currently holds an 11% critic score, and lower than Francis Ford Coppola’s big-budget bomb Megalopolis, which beats Joker 2 with a 46% critic score.
Joker 2 scores worse than Megalopolis
As if that wasn’t bad enough, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Joker: Folie à Deux also appears to have ranked worse than a number of its superhero-themed counterparts on CinemaScore.
CinemaScore is used by studios to gauge audience feedback to new releases by polling early reactions after screenings.
As per their data, Joker 2 scored a D from opening night viewers – making it the first major comic book movie to receive such a low CinemaScore verdict.
By comparison, Phillips’ first Joker movie received a B+.
By earning a D, Joker: Folie à Deux now sits lower than Jared Leto’s heavily memed Morbius, the aforementioned Madame Web and even 1997’s campy Batman & Robin – all of which scored a C+.
Francis Ford Coppola enjoyed Joker 2
It’s also lower than Megalopolis – although that hasn’t put Coppola off Phoenix’s latest. The iconic filmmaker seemed to have enjoyed Joker 2, taking to Instagram to share his thoughts.
Uploading a poster image for Joker: Folie à Deux, the Apocalypse Now filmmaker’s caption read: “@ToddPhillips films always amaze me and I enjoy them thoroughly. Ever since the wonderful “The Hangover” he’s always one step ahead of the audience never doing what they expect.
“Congratulations to Joker: Folie à Deux!”
