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‘Joker 2’ Was a Flex, Not a Sabotage

‘Folie á Deux’ may repulse moviegoers, but Todd Phillips isn’t inflicting self-harm or sabotaging Warner Bros., he’s showing off his clout as a billion-dollar grosser.

Todd Phillips
Everything worked out great the first time, Phillips argued to the studio, so why screw around with the unformulaic formula for success? Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
Matthew Belloni
October 8, 2024

It’s easy to look at this weekend’s disastrous numbers for Joker: Folie à Deux—$37.8 million domestic, $77 million in 76 foreign markets, down more than half from Joker on a production budget nearly four times that of the first film—and point fingers at Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, the film chairs at Warner Bros. In hindsight, this bleak and off-putting movie should not have been greenlit at a nearly $200 million budget.