This $1B Movie Only Cost $60M, but Its Upcoming Sequel's Ridiculously Pricey

Summary:

• Todd Phillips’s first Joker had a budget of $55M and raked up over $1B at the box office.
• Joker: Folie à Deux has a much bigger budget of $200M and, potentially, a huge issue.
• Unlike the first installment, Joker 2 will be a musical, and this genre tends to underperform at the box office.

When it comes to Hollywood and box office, there’s a fine line separating a commercial success from a disastrous bomb. Despite the popular belief, it’s not so much about a movie’s quality as about its production budget, since a $120 haul means two different things for films that cost $50M or $150M to make.

Todd Phillips didn’t just cross that line; admittedly, he yeeted himself a mile over it.

Joker 2 Rakes Up an Bizarrely Large Budget

The first Joker was positioned as an indie movie. “Don’t mind them,” it said, “It’s just a little unknown director Todd Phillips (Duh) and a little poor studio Warner Bros. (Duh 2: Electric Boogaloo).” Thanks to its modest and wise marketing, Joker managed to thrive on a budget of $55M and turned out to be nothing short of brilliant.

But after the first installment’s success, the next part, Joker: Folie à Deux, can't afford to pretend to be an indie movie anymore — or so they say. The production budget of the upcoming movie is more than triple the size of the original: Todd Phillips has around $200M to play around with, but it’s just as dangerous as it is enticing.

Because while Joker raked up more than $1B at the box office against its objectively modest budget, there are reasons to believe that Joker 2 won’t repeat its success.

Joker 2 Will Have It Harder Than The Original

While the core elements of Joker’s success — director Todd Phillips and lead star Joaquin Phoenix — are still there in Joker: Folie à Deux, another aspect is missing entirely. Unlike the first installment, the upcoming movie will have a genre all too unfamiliar to the general audience — it will be a musical, of all things.

Musicals tend to have it much harder at the box office, with a few notable exceptions. The genre’s specifics repel a large chunk of the audience, and in the case of Joker 2 and its bizarrely overblown budget, this might mean the difference between success and failure.

Millions are waiting for Joaquin Phoenix’s next outing as the criminal prince of Gotham; but how many of them will actually buy tickets to a musical?

We’ll have to wait and see how Joker: Folie à Deux performs at the box office, but for now, it doesn’t seem like the best idea. Either the budget should have been more adequate, or the genre more common.

Source: Variety