2019's Joker was a surprise sensation, grossing $1.079 billion at the box office.
The sequel came out last week, pairing Joaquin Phoenix's Joker with Lady Gaga's Harley Quinn. Given the success of the first film, I asked whether this would be another billion dollar film. When Manifold concluded that it wouldn't, I asked whether it would reach half a billion:
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The film has come out to poor reviews and disappointing opening. People are talking about it being an absolute flop. So now I'm asking whether the film will even make a quarter of a billion dollars.
The source of truth for this market will be the film's Box Office Mojo page here. The cutoff date will be 31st December - but if it's looking very close then I will wait for a week after that to see if the days up to the 31st are revised.
1,000
3.00The current total according to Box Office Mojo. This includes estimates for the most recent weekend in some markets:
Domestic (ie. US & Canada) - $51.6m
International - $113.7m
Worldwide - $165.3m
It's been dropping like a rock in the domestic market - down over 80% from the first week to the second. That's one of the biggest drops ever seen for such a large film, even more shocking given how much of a drop off there had already been within that first weekend as people didn't go to see it on the Sunday because of poor word of mouth.
Can the film's chances of $250m be saved by any international markets which are still to open?
Here's my thinking: obviously it's not been received well. It likely won't have very high holds week over week. If the second weekend has a 64% drop (which if anything may be a bit generous), that puts it around 13.9 million. Plus it looks like it's going to come in around 8 or 9 million for this first Monday through Thursday, so call it 22.9 million for the first full week after its 37.7 million debut. Even if it ends up holding 54% week-over-week after, that's a domestic run of 87.5 million. Even if it maintained a roughly 2:1 international to domestic ratio, that wouldn't be enough to cross 250. Now one thing that gives me pause is the original Joker did 31% domestic and 69% international. That breakdown would be enough to get Joker to cross 250. All of which to say, I think this is a good NO at 50%, but I wouldn't take it at 40% unless it comes in even softer over the next few weeks (or international comes in lower).
@polymathematic It's also being released in China unlike the first Joker in 2019. That should bump the international number a bit. Japan opening this weekend is also worth watching. I do think it will underperform in both of those markets in line with first week openings, but by how much?
Yup I haven't investigated this one much, just betting NO by instinct here, but it's really hard to to project this one because the international splits are so weird. In some countries Joker 2 totally bombed (like domestic), while in some parts of Europe it did fine. It's harder to get data for individual european countries (I'm sure it's doable, but not worth the effort) so I dunno if people expect those European countries where it opened alright to now drop off a cliff, or if they'll hold. And while Joker 2 isn't supposed to do well in China, when you're trying to push it over $250M, even a modest opening there could swing it.
So I still think NO at 50-60% is fine just on the instinct that in the area where we do have clear daily results (domestic) it is absolutely plummeting, and it seems plausible that we'll see a similar WW drop. But all it would take is for Europe to continue to be ~ok for Joker 2 and it could probably cross 250