‘Joker: Folie A Deux’ Has Set A Comic Book Movie Record

You have probably heard at this point that Joker: Folie a Deux is a massive miss of a sequel, a black mark for DC and what is likely to be a box office failure with an inexplicably bloated budget. But now? It’s set a full-on record. A bad one.

Joker: Folie a Deux now has the lowest CinemaScore in the history of the rating system for a comic book movie, a D. That has never happened before. Every awful comic book you can think of in the last 30 years? It’s lower.

CinemaScore is usually a pretty good gauge of audience reaction which can be either elevated above critics for blockbuster popcorn films, or lower than critics for less accessible films (my favorite horror movie of all time, Hereditary, has a D+ CinemaScore). But what that means is that a lot of superhero movies, especially modern ones, do quite well. The original Joker got a B+.

You can see the full list here, but the end result is that Joker: Folie a Deux is the only one that has gotten a D. Not even a D+, mind you, nothing else even got that.

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This is a list with dozens and dozens of A ratings, and probably even fewer Bs. There are only 14 Cs in comic book movie history which includes the likes of Morbius, Madame Web and 2015’s Fantastic Four, with latter having a C- that previously made it the lowest score until Joker 2’s D.

Why? Well, see the movie, but the general consensus is that A) it did not need to be made, B) it is boring, C) the musical numbers are too frequent and not good and D) absolutely everyone hates the ending.

The film has caused current DC leadership like James Gunn to distance from the project, reminding people that it is not a DC Studios offering, but from Warner Bros. which is different. Director Todd Philips, who has been raked over the coals for this sequel, has said he’s done with DC and is moving on.

We are still waiting for the final box office weekend totals here, but it looks like the movie may debut with a quarter of the original’s numbers despite a budget that is four times in the original. It remains to be seen if it can crawl to become a financial success long term, but in terms of audience reception, it literally could not get worse.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.