Weekend Box Office Results: No One’s Laughing Now: ‘Joker Folie à Deux’ Falls Down With $39M-$40M Opening

“This isn’t a box office marketplace problem, this is a creative development problem,” declared one movie marketing vet this weekend over Warner Bros‘ bold swing with a foul Joker: Folie à Deux, which at a production cost of 0M+ net is coming in way, way, way below forecasts at M, steeper than the M which was spotted by the town yesterday. Warner is reporting M this morning, others see it lower. Amazingly, the studio’s overseas M+ projection held up with what’s coming in at a .1M opening; total worldwide at 1.1M, not 0M+.

If anyone was betting on Joker: Folie à Deux as being a winning tentpole in their fantasy box office league a year out, well, sorry, you just lost a ton of cash. This sequel based on a DC Comics character is one of the lowest sequel openings in memory to a major franchise film based on a comic-book. It’s certainly lower than the start of Marvel Studios’ bomb last fall, The Marvels, and that was $46.1M. More people saw Marvels at 3.3M admissions in its opening weekend one versus Joker 2‘s 2.5M per EntTelligence.

Read more at Deadline.