'Joker: Folie a Deux' snares $40 million in domestic debut, less than half of first film

Audiences got the past laughter astatine the container bureau this weekend.

"Joker: Folie a Deux" stumbled to conscionable $40 cardinal successful home summons income during its opening weekend, a acold outcry from the $96.2 cardinal its predecessor brought successful during its debut successful 2019.

Just past month, the movie was expected to haul-in person to $70 million, but arsenic reviews poured in, that estimated fig slumped to astir $50 million.

"The originative hazard that 'Joker: Folie a Deux' took is commendable, but precise pugnacious captious reviews arsenic good arsenic a mixed moviegoer absorption made for a challenging marketplace situation that rendered an different respectable $40 cardinal home debut a disappointment erstwhile balanced against the film's massive, reported fund and immense crossed the committee expectations," said Paul Dergarabedian, elder media expert astatine Comscore.

Director Todd Phillips' archetypal "Joker" tallied a whopping $1.07 cardinal astatine the planetary container bureau 5 years agone connected a humble fund of astir $65 million. Its sequel carried a $200 cardinal accumulation terms tag, not inlcuding selling efforts.

Audiences and critics applauded Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga's performances successful "Folie a Deux," but they felt the communicative had excessively galore ideas and not capable plot.

"The determination to crook the sequel into a musical-slash-courtroom-drama is arsenic perplexing arsenic it sounds — and the results are truthful bad, they're really fascinating," wrote Adam Nayman in his reappraisal of the movie for The Ringer.

At present, "Folie a Deux" carries a 33% people connected reappraisal aggregator tract Rotten Tomatoes from 258 captious reviews and 31% assemblage people from much than 2,500 moviegoer reviews.

Disclosure: Comcast is the genitor institution of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Rotten Tomatoes.