Inside the ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Debacle: Todd Phillips ‘Wanted Nothing to Do’ With DC on the $200 Million Misfire

On Sept. 30, Lady Gaga blew kisses to fans outside the TCL Chinese Theatre ahead of the premiere of “Joker: Folie à Deux,” while Joaquin Phoenix dropped his typical solemn facade and flashed a few smiles from the red carpet. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav dropped by the after-party at Sunset Tower and mingled with the film’s two high-paid lead actors as the meatless sliders (vegan Phoenix’s idea) made the rounds. For all the star wattage on display, there were some notable no-shows — namely, DC Studios toppers James Gunn and Peter Safran.

Insiders say the duo’s glaring absence for a film that is based on one of the biggest draws in the DC canon underscores a dysfunctional dynamic that played out behind the scenes on the ill-fated Warner Bros. musical. Todd Phillips “wanted nothing to do with DC” during the making of the film, says one agent familiar with the director’s unique carve-out, which allowed him to bypass any oversight from the brand’s gatekeepers. Although Gunn has publicly supported the film on social media, Phillips has distanced himself from DC. As the animated title-card sequence unspooled inside the iconic Hollywood cinema in the opening minutes, it became apparent that Phillips had just given DC the middle finger. There was no DC Studios logo.

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“If the first movie was about some down-on-his-luck, mentally ill guy in a downtrodden city, it makes maybe $150 [million] worldwide. Not a billion,” says a source familiar with the internal awkwardness. “People showed up because that guy was Joker.”

(A DC spokesperson downplays any tensions and says Gunn was busy directing the Max series “Peacemaker” in Atlanta, which had lost a day of production due to Hurricane Helene, while Safran was sick. A Warners spokesperson notes that a DC logo appears at the end of the “Joker” sequel. Phillips declined to comment for this story.)

Now that the dust has settled on the sequel’s disastrous opening weekend, plenty of soul-searching is taking place on the Burbank lot. The overarching question being asked is: Why spend $200 million to make — and nearly $100 million to market — a tentpole that ignores the DC fanbase? And “ignores” may be putting it mildly. As a Rolling Stone review of the film succinctly put it: “‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Has a Message for Fans: Go F-ck Yourselves.”

Alas, the fanboys and fangirls stayed home, resulting in a shocking $37.7 million domestic opening for Phillips’ follow-up to his 2019 “Joker,” an enormous success that cost just $60 million and earned $1.1 billion. Such disregard for the base has brand repercussions. After all, Joker is not some obscure character. The Batman foil is by far the most high-profile villain in comics, spanning either DC or Marvel. But given that Phillips made such a wildly profitable first “Joker” for Warner Bros. — not to mention three “Hangover” movies — motion picture group chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy seemed unwilling to say no to their prized director with their first green light.

The movie began production in December 2022, two months after Gunn and Safran took control of DC, and many expected the duo to provide notes and feedback on the R-rated musical, especially given the capital outlay involved. But Phillips balked and would only liaise with De Luca and Abdy. And he has done little to dispel the appearance of friction, even though Gunn and Safran were on hand for the first director’s cut screening for the studio. When asked by a Collider reporter if the production process changed when the pair succeeded DC head Walter Hamada or if they had any input, Phillips replied, “With all due respect to them, this is kind of a Warner Bros. movie.”

And even Warner Bros.’ feedback was sometimes ignored. Sources say Zaslav met one-on-one with Phillips shortly after WarnerMedia and Discovery merged in April 2022 and was open to filming in Los Angeles if the director would make the sequel at a lower price point. (The studio preferred London, where it would have cost about 20% less.) But Phillips insisted on shooting in Los Angeles, and the budget didn’t change. (A Warners spokesperson says the studio “supported the decision to film in Los Angeles” and the Zaslav-Phillips confab was merely a meet-and-greet where they discussed what else the director wanted to make there.) Insiders say studio brass did not want to debut the film at the Venice Film Festival, as it had done five years ago with “Joker,” but Phillips pushed back. A Warners spokesperson says the studio “fully supported the decision to bring the film to Venice.”

Other battles of will between Phillips and Warners ensued. Phillips refused to test screen “Joker 2.” So its premiere in Venice marked the first time an audience saw it. The critics rejected it, and the film tallied a disastrous 33% score on Rotten Tomatoes well before earning a dismal “D” CinemaScore. To put that grade into context, the much reviled “Madame Web” landed a “C+” earlier this year. (A Warners spokesperson says, “Given the film contains spoilers, the studio did not want to unnecessarily divulge plot points too early to test audiences, but rather, allow moviegoers to discover the film in their own time.”)

Making a sequel to a billion-dollar movie, whether it’s “Aquaman” or “Joker,” is considered a smart bet. But with its outsize budget, which included $20 million upfront for Phoenix, $20 million for Phillips and $12 million for Gaga, the film needed to make at least $450 million theatrically to break even — a now unlikely scenario. Warner Bros. is already on the back foot following a series of recent money losers, including “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” and “The Color Purple.” The parent company’s stock price remains in the cellar, near an all-time low at $7.67 a share.

“This is a black eye for Warner Bros. at a key time, with the industry expecting a hit,” says Wall Street analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities. “The timing could not be worse.”

“Joker: Folie à Deux” also may have suffered from not having Bradley Cooper’s voice at the table. Cooper, who was a producer on 2019’s “Joker” and is known for his commercial instincts including his low-budget hit “A Star Is Born” with Gaga, was not involved with the sequel after dissolving his producing partnership with Phillips in 2021.

“No one could get through to Todd,” says one source directly involved with the film. “And the one thing about genre stuff: If you don’t listen and pay attention to what the fan expectations are, you’re going to fail.”

In fact, catering to the fanbase was supposed to be the strategy. When the Zaslav era began, the CEO touted a 10-year plan for DC that would take a page from the Marvel playbook, in which all films adhere to the singular vision of president Kevin Feige. Yet somehow the “Joker” sequel was allowed to skirt that mandate, with Phillips operating in an alternate silo from the newly installed DC chiefs. Not surprisingly, the core DC fans revolted, and the result is damage to the brand.

“This is a ‘Speed 2’ level of disaster — with Warner Bros. massively overspending on a sequel, only to see its audience all but abandon the film domestically,” says box– office analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations. “Warner Bros. has the biggest hit of the fall season in ‘Beetlejuice 2’ and now likely the largest flop, too, in ‘Joker 2.’ Such is the way of the sequel. The truth is, the creators of ‘Joker 2’ went a direction [that] the majority of audiences didn’t want to follow. Ultimately, choices were made, and unfortunately, they didn’t align with moviegoers’ taste.”