Hang in there, Todd Phillips.
That was the message Francis Ford Coppola tried to convey in a social media post Saturday. Like his new film Megalopolis continues to bomb at the box office, praised Todd Phillips for making it Joker: Folie a Deuxwhich is also in difficulty.
THE Joker The sequel, which opens in theaters worldwide this weekend, opens well below expectations after becoming the first Hollywood comic book film in history to receive a D Cinemascore. The audience reaction isn't a huge surprise, considering the sequel is a musical, creating an unusual hybrid that fans may not have wanted.
Coppola says Phillips' films have always amazed and entertained him. He also suggested that viewers might not be ready for a film like Joker: Folie a Deux. “Since the wonderful The Hangoverhe was always one step ahead of the audience, never doing what was expected. Congratulations to Joker: Folie a Deux,” Coppola wrote on Instagram.
This is only slightly worse than the D+ awarded Megalopolis when it hit theaters last weekend. Coppola's dystopian epic debuted with just $4 million against a pre-release production budget of $120 million. No major studio would touch the film, so Coppola raised the funds himself, even putting up some of his own money. Lionsgate was last-minute to release the film, which is expected to earn less than $1 million this weekend.
Joker: Folie a Deux – a hybrid anti-hero movie and musical starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga – had no problem getting made after Phillips' Joker it grossed $1 billion globally in 2019 and earned multiple Oscar nominations, as well as Best Actor for Phoenix. The first Joker cost $55 million before commercialization; the sequel cost between $190 and $200 million net, significantly raising the stakes.
When Folie a Deux first arrived three weeks ago, it looked like it would open to $70 million. While it was still behind the first film's $96 million domestic release, it was a respectable figure. However, as reviews started coming in and the film was singled out for influences, interest waned and there was a noticeable drop in tracking. For this weekend, the forecast was between $50 and $60 million.
However, based on Friday's opening day gross of $20 million, Folie a Deux it looks to open in the low-to-mid $40 million range (a rival studio even has it in the high $30 million range).
Joining the D CinemaScore club isn't the only thing Coppola and Phillips have in common, it seems.
Coppola said in his Instagram post that he was honored by this Joker 2 cinematographer Lawrence Sher talked about Coppola's infamous 1981 musical One from the heart – a critical and commercial flop, which nearly put his studio Zoetrope out of business – provided the inspiration for Folie à Deux. (In recent years, critics have revisited One From the Heart, turning it into something of a cult classic.)
The reviewers weren't kind to them either Megalopolis OR Joker 2which earned a critical score of 46% and 33% on Rotten Tomatoes.