The Joker FAD Box Office Thread

[Future Lovers 6,086]

Hi friends! 

This conversation is happening in many, many threads now so I thought it maybe would be better to make just one devoted thread to have this discussion now that the film is in pre-sale and will be releasing in just a few weeks. 

I am a self-admitted box office nerd. I am really obsessed with the stats and numbers and following along with how a film performs at the box office and I am watching this one rather closely. But I also know a lot of you are too! I'm also sure a lot of you have some questions about the box office, how it works, etc. So this is the thread where we can all chat, follow what's going on, share box office news, and discuss what is certainly shaping up to be a wild box office ride! 

[RAMROD 101,527]

I already got my worries after initial reactions by fans who attended Venice.

I'll reserve judgement, (and meltdown), after I see it myself end of this month. 

 

[Reality 68,908]

I said this in the critics thread, but the current $70 million (domestic) opening weekend tracking is abysmal. I think that number will increase as we get closer to October, but now I'm worried it won't even match the first film's opening weekend—which would be awful.

At the end of the day though, what matters is whether or not we like the film. I loved the first movie and regardless of whether or not Gaga was in this one, I would've seen a sequel to it anyway. Gaga + the musical elements are all just icing on top for me.

[gerrygaga 1,233]

manifesting 1 billion. Phoenix. Gaga. BAM! 

[Future Lovers 6,086]

To get some information out of the way early, here's a pretty simple to understand but detailed summary of what all of these bits of information regarding box office are and what the terms mean:

1. Domestic + International Box Office: We measure a film's overall box office is calculated by using two different categories of earnings: Domestic and International. Domestic box office is how much a film makes in the United States and Canada (it can also mean it's country of origin if it's like a Japanese film, or a Bollywood film, but domestic will almost always mean US/CAN because most films from other countries don't receive releases as worldwide as films made fully or at least in part by American studios). International box office is how much a film makes everywhere else. To get a film's total box office, you simply add these two figures together. 

For example, according to Box Office Mojo,  A Star is Born made $215,333,122 at the domestic box office and $221,100,000 at the international box office for a worldwide total of $436,433,122. That is a fairly even split, but this is not actually super common. Take a look at the first Joker film from 2019: domestically it made $335,477,657 and internationally it made $743,480,625 for a worldwide total of $1,078,958,629.

The reason that we split the two is because there are particulars about the financial specifics of the box office in the US/CAN that are not present in other markets such as the way in which studios and theaters split profits, tax credits that count against debt incurred from a budget, and the way in which films are marketed and released. By taking a look at this specific part of the box office grosses separately from the rest of the world, we can get a more consistent and clear view of how movies performing according to various factors that don't impact it elsewhere in the world. 

2. Legs + Multipliers: Legs simply means how well a film holds up week to week at the box office compared to it's opening weekend. There are some films that have massive opening weekends, but have poor legs afterward meaning that they saw significant week after week declines. Some films open with average or below average numbers but manage to have consistent returns week after week. A multiplier is the numerical representation of of a film's final domestic or international earnings compared to it's opening weekend earnings.

A good recent example of the latter is Pixar's Elemental which opened with a very low domestic total of $29.6 million. However, the film managed to become a sleeper hit and finished it's run at the domestic box office with $154.4 million and a worldwide total of $496 million. That means domestically, Elemental had legs of 5.22x times meaning that it's final domestic box office total was 5.22x it's domestic opening weekend earnings. 

Looking at the original Joker, the film had a domestic opening weekend of $96.2 million. It's final domestic total was $335.47 million, meaning it had a multiplier of 3.49 (meaning it made 3.49 times it's opening weekend figure). Worldwide the film had an opening of $247 million. It's final worldwide total was $1.078 billion meaning it had multiplier of 4.37. Now, multipliers aren't often applied to international box office but it can be! But you mostly see it run domestic. 

3. CinemsaCcore Correlation: Now this one is a little odd, but it's very interesting. 

CinemaScore is a company that polls audiences who attend films opening weekend and asks them to grade a film according to how they felt about it. These scores are all collected and averaged to get the final CinemaScore. It is important to note that this is NOT meant to be an indication of a film's quality like a Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic score is, it's meant to be an indication of how audiences respond to a film. Sometimes, a good movie can get a really bad Cinemascore. For example, the widely acclaimed horror film Hereditary has a D on CinemaScore (on an A+ to F scale). The reason for this is because the audience that saw it opening weekend didn't respond well to it, likely as a result of a poor marketing campaign or they just weren't the target audience for said film. 

When you're dealing with blockbusters, CinemaScores can get a little wild though. Because these films are aimed at such a wide audience and they're massive cultural events, most people who're there on opening weekend are there because they're excited about the film and want to be there. How that audience responds is a big deal. 

But how does this relate to box office? Well, it has been noticed across the nearly 30 years that CinemaScore has been doing this that a film's CinemaScore can very often correlate strongly to what kind of legs a film ends up having because it is a representation of how general audiences have reacted and what the word of mouth is going to be. This is not always true, but it is often true. 

In the world of CinemaScore, the letter grades don't necessarily mean the same thing they do in school really. In school, a C on a test would be a rather middle of the road, average grade. In CinemaScores, if your film is a wide release blockbuster and it gets a C, that is bad. Anything lower is very, very bad. B- or a B is considered average, B+ is considered above average, A- is very good, A is great, and A+ is incredible. A+ is very rare. Most blockbusters fall in the range of a B to A. 

The original Joker has a CinemaScore of B+ on CinemaScore, meaning audiences on opening weekend through the film was pretty good and this reflected in it's stellar box office performance. 

While this isn't absolutely everything, a CinemaScore is a very good preview into how audiences feel about something. We will know Joker FAD's CinemaScore by the end of it's opening weekend so we'll be able to look at what it's future may hold. 

4. Break Even Point + Profitability: This one is pretty easy. 

The general rule of thumb for a film breaking even (meaning that the studio has made back all of the money they invested into it) is 2.5x budget. The reason for this is because in the US, studios split profits with theaters on an almost 50/50 basis (some studios like Disney have different deals in place depending on the films and the studio, but even they generally follow this rule). The .5 is to take into account the money spent on marketing a film. 

So, for example, let's look again at the original Joker. The original film had a budget of $55 million. In order for the film to break even, it needed to make at least $137.5 million. Once it hits that figure (more realistically, you can round that up to a solid $150 million), then the further earnings become profit. Not all of that profit went to the studio, some will go to various other things that the studios don't report on. Most of the time, we won't really know what a studio's actual profit from a film is because they don't publicly report it, but we know Warner Bros. made a lot of money off of Joker. 

Now, FAD has a reported budget of around $200 million. Following this rule, in order for the film to break even, it needs to make $500 million at the box office. 

[Future Lovers 6,086]

The big news surrounding the film right now is sluggish pre-sales. On Wednesday, Deadline released their 3-week tracking estimate for the film's opening weekend. 

Based upon the sluggish pre-sales (though they have noted it is performing well in pre-sales in big cities), they're predicting a $70 million+ opening weekend domestically. If it lands in this range, that would be over $20 million less than the domestic opening weekend of the first film. Worldwide, the film is still expected to make over $100 million opening weekend, but it is also expected to fall short of the first film's worldwide opening weekend. 

Things can change pretty dramatically the closer we get to release. Opening weekend especially could shift the film majorly. But don't be surprised if it doesn't either. At the moment, as far as I can tell, $1 billion is not a realistic outcome for the film. 

[dit 44,278]

At the moment, as far as I can tell, $1 billion is not a realistic outcome for the film. Which isn’t bad per se but far from ideal I suppose. Especially when considering the higher budget on this sequel…it’ll do find overall and cover its fees and churn out a big profit im sure but if not matching the first or even coming close will be annoying tbh

[Levine 20,351]

So the bad critics "killed" the movie or people never had intention to see it in the first place? 

[SevenWonder 3,495]

I love film stats too!

One thing I've said before: Gaga is really in a win/win for JAD. The industry will NOT blame her for any underperformance. At all. This is NOT really a Gaga film. This is a Todd Phillips film, first and foremost. And a Phoenix film second. 

ASIB and, to a lesser extent HOG, were more "Gaga" films. She had a lot more riding on those films in terms of box office. And she passed with flying colors. 

And let's not forget that in all three films, she received mostly praise for her actual acting. 

So she's proven box office when it was her name on the line AND has proven her raw acting talent is almost as generationally good as her pop music. Gaga the actress is going to be just fine no matter what happens with JFAD.

Oh and let's also just get this out of the way: JFAD ain't making a billion. Or I would be shocked if it did. But it should do $500 million worldwide (I would hope) which is indeed roughly the break even point. Add in crazy streaming deals I assume the movie has and the film should turn a profit. 

[Cpeer 871]

Honestly I don’t see any hype about the movie. Nobody around me even mentions it. Maybe the situation changes once they heavy promote the movie and the release date comes closer 

[Killa 14,926]

God i feel like this Will flop hard. 

[Future Lovers 6,086]

25 minutes ago, Levine said:

So the bad critics "killed" the movie or people never had intention to see it in the first place? 

Honestly I don't think the reviews out of the festival are having as big of an impact on this as it maybe looked like at first. The first film didn't get positive reviews. It has a RT score on the lower end of fresh (it isn't even certified fresh), and a yellow MC score. It didn't matter on the box office.

I won't say it has nothing at all to do with it, but it's not the driving factor here. 

There are really four big points of interest here I think to answer the question of what is happening:

1. The first film's reputation has declined a noticeable bit since 2019. At the time, it was pretty universally lauded by audiences and they helped carry it to being a massive success (along with something else I'm gonna get to in a minute). But in the intervening years, the newness of it has worn off the cracks started to show on it. While I think its a well made film, the longer you sit with it, the more you realize it's a very derivative work that also never really says anything. It plays like it's saying something, but it never actually gets there. It starts to raise a point, but then kinda oddly backs off. And it does it all the while it's directly taking cues from other films (most specifically Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy) that are explicitly saying something, and saying something similar to what Joker was attempting to say at that. It's not nearly as profound, deep, or original as it seemed at the time and it's reputation among people has taken a bit of a dive since then. And incels have absolutely latched themselves onto it so it's kinda got a weird smell surrounding it now in online spaces.

2. Expanding on the point I mentioned earlier, we can't really take Joker's runaway success out of the context in which it happened. The film released in 2019, a time that is generally considered to be the absolute peak of the box office. Films were hot and doing incredibly well across the board. Even still, the film was not an immediate shoe in for $1 billion. That is until there was a conversation that started first very quietly and then very loudly about the film being "dangerous", or that it would inspire acts of violence. You had policeman patrolling movie theaters, the press writing think pieces, and members of the public genuinely nervous for if something would happen. That was all of course way, way, way out of touch with reality and some even believe now that it was actually a marketing tactic that kinda ended up spinning a little out of control. The film was all anyone could talk about for better or for worse. It was headline news, and people went to see it in droves. This film doesn't really have that at all. The talk about is Joker sequel and Lady Gaga. 

3. There has been a lot of waffling about the film from the people who made it. When it was announced they were emphasizing musical, and then now that we're close to release, they're trying really hard to say that it isn't. I mean just look at how Gaga explained it at Venice. They made a musical. We know that now. We have it confirmed that it is indeed very much a musical, and yet they absolutely don't want to tell audiences that. As such, audiences are a little unsure of what to make of this and that is reflected in their response to awareness surveys. They're very aware it's coming, but they don't really know what it is. And that's a problem. 

4. Lastly, those reviews are hurting it some not because the scores were bad but because we're now starting to hear plot points. I'm not going to spoil anything for anyone, but there are some creative choices in this film that are not going to sit well with people. And some of those points have made their way out into the ether. Even if people aren't hearing what happens, they are hearing that there's some very divisive stuff in here and that is absolutely killing a lot of people's interest, even those who were very excited. 

Personally, based on just the things I've read about the film and it's plot, I don't think the critics are completely off base with this. It to me sounds like a mess with a lot of really confusing creative swings that audiences are gonna have to decide how they feel about. 

The success of the film is gonna be entirely dependent on what decision they make. 

Edited 2 hours ago by Future Lovers

[Killa 14,926]

9 minutes ago, SevenWonder said:

I love film stats too!

One thing I've said before: Gaga is really in a win/win for JAD. The industry will NOT blame her for any underperformance. At all. This is NOT really a Gaga film. This is a Todd Phillips film, first and foremost. And a Phoenix film second. 

ASIB and, to a lesser extent HOG, were more "Gaga" films. She had a lot more riding on those films in terms of box office. And she passed with flying colors. 

And let's not forget that in all three films, she received mostly praise for her actual acting. 

So she's proven box office when it was her name on the line AND has proven her raw acting talent is almost as generationally good as her pop music. Gaga the actress is going to be just fine no matter what happens with JFAD.

Oh and let's also just get this out of the way: JFAD ain't making a billion. Or I would be shocked if it did. But it should do $500 million worldwide (I would hope) which is indeed roughly the break even point. Add in crazy streaming deals I assume the movie has and the film should turn a profit. 

Def not 1 billion, at all. 

Regarding Gaga, she might not be very affected but hog was a dud and this One, Need tò see, but of its another One, its not like her career Is taking off as an actress. 

[LateToCult 38,185]

@Future Lovers How would you say promotion of the film has been handled so far? In my opinion it’s been on the sparse side for what I considered to be a blockbuster. Do you think this could be an early sign that WB is being conservative with how much more money they’re willing to spend on the movie? Deadpool and Wolverine was everywhere months before it hit theaters. Beetlejuice and Wicked also felt more heavily promoted. Do you think it’ll ramp up now that we’re less than a month away or is this film just too somber and dark to promote at such a large scale?

Edited 2 hours ago by LateToCult

[Monstermilo 3,288]

yeah i feel like its not looking good. dont see much buzz around this film

Edited 2 hours ago by Monstermilo