‘Joker: Folie à Deux,’ directed by Todd Phillips, stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga
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Reactions to Joker: Folie à Deux‘s opening weekend are no laughing matter.
The sequel, a continuation of a grittier portrayal of the iconic Batman villain, received a D rating from CinemaScore, which polls moviegoers after seeing a movie to aggregate reactions.
According to Variety, that’s the lowest-ever score for a comic-book movie, the most recent record-holder being 2015’s Fantastic Four, which had a C-.
By comparison, the 2019 Joker, which won Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar for Best Actor, got a B+ on CinemaScore. Other critically panned films from this year fared slightly better than Folie à Deux — Borderlands got a D+, while Madame Web got a C+.
The first Joker film went on to be a blockbuster, earning over $1 billion at the global box office. Folie à Deux, though, had an opening weekend that came lower than industry predictions: $40 million at the domestic box office, per multiple outlets. (The budget for the film was reportedly $200 million, though director Todd Phillips has called that estimate “absurd.”)
The original Joker set an October record in 2019 when it opened to $96.2 million domestically.
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Lady Gaga joined the cast of the Joker sequel, taking on the role of Lee, a.k.a. Harley Quinn. The film is a musical and tracks Arthur Fleck’s (Phoenix) murder trial after the events of the first film.
In PEOPLE’s review, critic Tom Gliatto wrote that Folie à Deux is “turgid with misery, it’s basically the jukebox musical from hell.” On Rotten Tomatoes, the average among over 260 verified critics equals a 33% rating, and the audience score sits at 31%.
Director Phillips, 53, who also made the first Joker and the trilogy of Hangover comedies, has spoken in various interviews about taking risks with the sequel and subverting expectations. He also recently told The Hollywood Reporter he doesn’t plan on making a third Joker film: “I feel like my time in the DC Universe was these two films.”
Another filmmaker showed support for Phillips and Folie à Deux on Instagram over the weekend.
Francis Ford Coppola, whose latest big-budget movie Megalopolis got a D+ on CinemaScore and fizzled at the box office, wrote that Phillips’ 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!”
Joker: Folie à Deux is in theaters now.