Warner Bros. Boss David Zaslav Admits Joker 2 Was ‘Disappointing’

Warner Bros. Discovery nether the guiding manus of CEO David Zaslav has made a bid of puzzling decisions that look antithetical to gathering instrumentality demands. Key among its item reel of letdowns see unceremoniously canceling daring animated amusement Scavengers Reign and scrapping the completed Batgirl film for tax write-offs. While Warner Bros. has often opted to breeze past its lowlights arsenic a earthy portion of the amusement business, Zaslav owned up to the information that Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux was a large letdown.

Earlier today, successful a Warner Bros. net telephone (first reported by IGN), Zaslav singled retired the sequel portion expressing his disappointment successful the company’s uneven theatrical performance.

“Inconsistency besides remains an contented astatine our question representation studio, arsenic reinforced precocious by the disappointing results of Joker 2,” Zaslav said.

Zaslav’s comments travel pursuing Joker 2 bombing astatine the container office. On its opening weekend, the gritty DC philharmonic made $37.8 million; it’s since grossed little than $60 cardinal domestically. Suffice it to say, not galore radical went retired of their mode to ticker Joker 2 successful theaters. This isn’t helped by the information that the movie earned a CinemaScore of D, the lowest people fixed to a comic publication movie. To enactment things into context, the erstwhile rubric holder was Fantastic Four, which earned a C-.

Even grading connected the curve of its 2019 Oscar-winning predecessor, which has 68% positivity from critics and 89% from fans connected Rotten Tomatoes, Joker 2 presently sits astatine 32% from some groups. When enactment against the film’s outlandish $200 cardinal budget, it wasn’t astonishing to witnesser the movie swiftly person a digital and video-on-demand release a small implicit 2 weeks aft its October 29 theatrical release.

As IGN notes, Warner Bros. Discovery reported its Q3 gross of $9.6 billion, which for the pedestrians among america means the media conglomerate is down 3% year-over-year. Likewise, its theatrical gross is down 40% year-over-year. According to IGN, this fiscal dip is owed to the little container bureau show of films similar Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Twisters against the occurrence of 2023’s Barbie. IGN besides reports that Warner Bros. Discovery is “substantially underperforming” successful gaming arsenic well. In short, things aren’t looking excessively blistery for the company.

In io9’s review, we wrote “Joker: Folie à Deux is little astir Arthur than it’s a stand-in for him. It’s a movie and a quality that isn’t rather definite what it wants to be, oregon adjacent what it is, truthful it messes astir and yet decides it doesn’t privation to beryllium thing astatine all. At slightest the archetypal Joker near you with immoderate things to deliberation about. Here you’re conscionable near frustrated astatine everything that could person been oregon ne'er was.”

Not everyone is down connected Joker 2, however. The movie has recovered supporters successful folks similar Quentin Tarantino and Death Stranding crippled developer Hideo Kojima, who thinks the movie volition beryllium looked upon fondly successful the adjacent decade.

I watched "Joker: Folie à Deux.” The opening of the movie is an animation sequence, reminiscent of the nostalgic "Looney Tunes", depicting a communicative of Joker and Joker’s shadow. In the proceedings that follows, the question of his aggregate property is argued from opening to end. Is… pic.twitter.com/eEKRX4zPkD

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) November 3, 2024

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