It's the flop of the year, even the CEO of Warner Bros. finds Joker 2 disappointing

News culture It's the flop of the year, even the CEO of Warner Bros. finds Joker 2 disappointing

We live in a society

When it was released in 2019, the Joker by Todd Phillips largely divided the press, who found it both a beautifully directed film aided by the superb interpretation of Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role, but also a work with morals and controversial themes. For its part, the public widely acclaimed the feature filmwhich will manage to exceed a billion dollars at the end of its theatrical run. Regardless, the film's extraordinary success will push Warner Bros. to validate a sequel by granting Todd Philipps a budget between 3 and 4 times higher than its previous achievement for what was one of the most anticipated productions of the year 2024.

Unfortunately, Joker: Folie à deux will crash at the box office and even the introduction of Lady Gaga in the role of Harley Quinn will not be enough to convince the public. Painfully exceeding $200 million at the box officei.e. the high estimate of its budget, Joker: Folie à deux is a poor performance that Warner is sure to lose money on. After such a disappointment, it was impossible for Warner CEO David Zaslav not to revisit the film's failure.

When Warner gropes forward

During an “analyst call” reported by the Hollywood Reporter, Zaslav mentioned half-heartedly the problems the studio is going through.

“Even in an industry of successes and failures, we must recognize that our studios need to be more consistent. […]
Over the past two years we have made changes to improve our (project) validation process and franchise management […]. We are in an industry where changes take time to translate into results, but we believe these strategic changes will deliver better results in the years to come.”

It is true that Warner recently had to face the consequences of a series of decisions made by David Zaslav himself. Among the most notable, that of releasing the films in theaters and on VOD at the same time, a decision which had not only led to low box offices for the films concerned but had also damaged the studio's relationship with a certain number of filmmakers including Christopher Nolan, who has since left for Paramount.

More recently, this same Zaslav had decided to bury a handful of projects including Batgirlan animated film Scooby-Doo and above all Coyote vs Acmea live-action/animation hybrid work fully completed and particularly well received by the few spectators who had the chance to participate in test screenings. Where the bottom particularly hurts: the media The Wrap reported that the decision was made by Zaslav even though he had never seen the film.