Joker: Folie à Deux just had another dismal weekend at the North American box office. During its second weekend in theaters, it grossed only $7 million and slipped behind Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ($7.3 million), The Wild Robot ($14 million), and Terrifier 3 ($18.8 million).
The sequel hasn't fared well with fans or critics and fell short of 2019's Joker in just about every way. Of course, that movie also had its fair share of detractors as Todd Phillips wore his inspirations on his sleeve, pulling heavily from the likes of The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver.
Paul Schrader wrote the latter and, talking to Interview Magazine, he admitted that he hated everything about Joker: Folie à Deux. In fact, he didn't even make it to the end!
"I saw Joker: Folie à Deux. I saw about 10 or 15 minutes of it. I left, bought something, came back, saw another 10 minutes. That was enough," the Taxi Driver and Raging Bull scribe admitted. "It’s a really bad musical."
Pushed on why he hated it so much, Schrader pointed the blame at stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. "I don’t like either of those people. I don’t like them as actors. I don’t like them as characters. I don’t like the whole thing," he stated. "I mean, those are people who, if they came to your house, you’d slip out the back door."
Inevitably, the interviewer then asked whether the filmmaker had ever considered working on a Marvel movie.
"No, no. The closest I got to it, and I realized it really wasn’t for me, was when I tried to do the prequel to The Exorcist with Stellan Skarsgård," Schrader explained. "That was supposed to be a big-budget commercial film and it didn’t set easy with me. I had problems with the producers, problems with everything. More and more, I realized it was a bad fit."
Joker: Folie à Deux stands to lose Warner Bros. as much as $200 million after flopping at the box office and holds several unwanted records. For example, it's the lowest-rated comic book movie ever on CinemaScore with a D grade from filmgoers.
In our review of the movie, we concluded by saying, "Lady Gaga shines and Joaquin Phoenix brings more of the same to Joker: Folie à Deux, a wholly unnecessary sequel with no new ideas and nothing to say. It doesn’t work as a movie or a musical. What a waste of $200 million."
Phillips has already said Joker 3 won't ever happen - the ending makes that clear - but between this and Jared Leto's divisive performance in the DCEU, now might be a good time to let the Clown Prince of Crime rest for a while.
Do you agree with Schrader's Joker: Folie à Deux review?