Box office: Joker 2 makes a grimace and starts less well than The Marvels

In front Birds of Preybehind The Marvels

With only $40 million collected this weekend, Joker: Folie à Deux disappoints on all levels. The sequel does much less well than the experts' expectations (who expected it to be around 47 million), it is obviously very far from the debut of the first film (96.2 million) and even signs one of the worst recent scores of a DC movie, right in front Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (27.6 million) and Birds of Prey (33 million).

When it was released in 2019, the first Joker had seized a zeitgeist which had propelled this “arty” rereading of the supervillain and with a modest budget to international success, generating more than a billion dollars worldwide.

No one expected this sequel to repeat the feat, but this start remains a big failure for Warner and DC Studios, especially with a budget of more than $190 million. The maligned musical comedy aspect, and (above all) the lack of necessity for this sequel undoubtedly played a role.

Joker: Folie à Deux did a little better internationally and recorded 81.1 million dollars in 76 markets, for a global start at 121.1 million. It has yet to be released in Japan and China, but that should not save the film, which is accumulating negative reviews and poor feedback from the public. We will pay attention to retention in the second week, but the fall is likely to be heavy.

Big winner from last week, The Wild Robot held up very well with a loss of only 47.8% of its audience, and $18.7 million earned this weekend. This allows the latest Dreamworks animated film to exceed $100 million worldwide.

We are far from the boxes of Kung Fu Panda And Dragonsbut the feature film has what it takes to become a success in the long term, as the Puss in Boots 2: The Last Quest which started with a first weekend of 12.4 million and ended with a worldwide total of 481 million dollars.

If Warner makes a face with Jokerthe studio can rejoice in the career of BeetlejuiceBeetlejuice. The sequel by Tim Burton rakes in 10.3 million new dollars and totals 265 million on American soil. The film has even just surpassed the 400 million mark worldwide and confirms its status as a surprise hit.

Finally, in the rest of the box office, Transformers: The Beginning stalls a little and loses the battle of the back-to-school family film against the Wild Robot. Paramount's animated feature film is left behind in fourth place with $5.3 million added to its prize pool, and has not yet quite reached 100 million worldwide. Far from being enough to revive the franchise.

US box office October 4-6, 2024 (estimates)