Hang in there, Todd Phillips.
That was the message Francis Ford Coppola tried to get across in a social media post on Saturday. As his new film Megalopolis continues to bomb at the box office, he praised Todd Phillips for making Joker: Folie à Deux, which is likewise struggling.
The Joker sequel, which is launching in theaters around the globe this weekend, is opening well behind expectations after becoming the first Hollywood comic book pic in history to receive a D Cinemascore. The audience backlash isn’t a huge surprise, considering that the follow-up is a musical, making for an unusual hybrid that fanboys might not have wanted.
Coppola says Phillips’ films have always amazed him and provided enjoyment. He also suggested that moviegoers may not be ready for a film such as Joker: Folie à Deux. “Ever since the wonderful The Hangover, he’s always been one step ahead of the audience never doing what they expect. Congratulations to Joker: Folie à Deux,” Coppola wrote on Instagram.
That’s only slightly worse than the D+ awarded to Megalopolis when it opened in cinemas last weekend. Coppola’s dystopian epic debuted to a mere $4 million against a production budget of $120 million before marketing. No major studio would touch the movie, so Coppola raised the funds himself, including putting up some of his own money. Lionsgate came aboard at the 11th hour to distribute the movie, which is on course to earn less than $1 million this weekend.
Joker: Folie à Deux — a hybrid antihero pic and a musical that stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga — had no trouble getting made after Phillips’ Joker grossed $1 billion globally in 2019 and earned numerous Oscar nominations, as well as a best actor win for Phoenix. The first Joker cost $55 million to make before marketing; the sequel cost a net $190 million to $200 million, upping the stakes dramatically.
When Folie à Deux first came on tracking three weeks ago, it looked like it would open to $70 million. While still behind the first film’s $96 million domestic opening, it was a respectable number. However, as reviews started coming in and the film was screened for influences, interest waned and there was a notable dip in tracking. Heading into this weekend, the forecast was $50 million to $60 million.
Based on Friday’s opening day gross of $20 million, however, Folie à Deux looks to open in the low- to mid-$40 million range (one rival studio even has it in the high $30 million range).
Joining the D CinemaScore club isn’t the only thing that Coppola and Phillips have in common, as it turns out.
Coppola said in his Instagram post he’s honored that Joker 2 cinematographer Lawrence Sher has talked about how Coppola’s infamous 1981 musical One From the Heart — a critical and commercial flop, which nearly put his Zoetrope studio out of business — provided inspiration for Folie à Deux. (In recent years, critics have revisited One From the Heart, turning it into something of a cult classic.)
Reviewers haven’t been kind to either Megalopolis or Joker 2, which have a 46 percent and 33 percent critic’s score on Rotten Tomatoes.