“We paid our ticket”: the director of one of the biggest cinema flops of 2024 attacks forced advertisements before screenings!

News culture “We paid our ticket”: the director of one of the biggest cinema flops of 2024 attacks forced advertisements before screenings!

Risk, consequence

Todd Phillips is one of the most prominent directors in current cinema: his filmography is atypical to say the least since we owe him Very Bad Trip, War Dogs but also Joker, the latter having enjoyed triumphant success with many Oscars won and more billion dollars at the box office. Enough to push Warner to convince him of a sequel, Joker Folie à Deux, and recently released in theaters to an ultra-lukewarm reception… and above all disastrous scores: a launch barely ahead of Aquaman 2 or Birds of Prey for example, for a budget which has nevertheless exploded compared to its predecessor.

Warner Bros. has even been sounding the alarm for quite some time, the feature film is already available across the Atlantic on VOD. In short, it’s complicated for the studio and for the franchise, although the press praises the real qualities of this ugly duckling Joker 2: moreover, even Hideo Kojima says that opinions around this (risky) musical will change “over the next ten or twenty years”.

No ads, only trailers

In short, that was for a little context, always necessary to better understand Todd Phillips who has not finished spilling the ink. Very recently, the filmmaker continued to be talked about for his rant declared at the microphone of Empire magazine:

Stop showing commercials before movies. We paid for our ticket. We’re happy to be here. Advertisements tend to spoil the atmosphere.

He admits it without difficulty, but the advertisements during cinema screenings (and not the film trailers, nuance!) a priori feed everyone – in any case, especially him and he openly complains about it. On the other hand, there is a certain irony since in an era where cinema is more than ever jeopardized by Netflix, Disney Plus and others, it is the advertisements which partly make it possible to finance cinemas, to participate in the economy or even cushion a little… certain financial fiascos.

Buy Joker on 4K Blu-Ray on Amazon