Joker 2 bombing doesn't mean you should listen to the fans

Well, I’ll give Hollywood this…learning the wrong lessons from Joker: Folie a Deux bombing happened in record time. Usually, it takes months for the wrong lessons to be learned…here it took just 48 hours!

Initially, it looked like the dumbest takeaway from this Todd Phillips movie flopping would be from Warner Bros. President of Domestic Distribution Jeff Goldstein. After Folie a Deux cratered, he suggested to The Wall Street Journal that one reason for the failure was that male audiences didn't respond to Lady Gaga's casting. Glad we could figure out how to pin this on a woman! However, now outlets like Variety are quoting studio insiders and other major voices clarifying the "real" reason Joker: Folie a Deux bombed. It was because it wasn't connected enough to DC Comics and didn't "respect the fans".

Please oh please, do not let the staggering failure of Joker: Folie a Deux suggest we should all kowtow to internet trolls. Catering or not catering to fans wasn’t what went wrong here.

Catering to “the fans” or “the mainstream” has always been a recipe for creative disaster. Try too hard to please people and it just comes off as sterile. That’s the thought process of studio executives, not folks producing satisfying art. It’s not a 1:1 to modern superhero movie fan service. However, think of all the listless English-language dubs/cuts of foreign films that have been unleashed over the years. These properties hail from Western producers looking to make properties “more accessible” to moviegoers. In the process, they erase all the idiosyncratic creative identities from the original movies. You’re left with something desperate to appeal to everybody that can please nobody.

When it comes to Joker: Folie a Deux, the film's box office failure didn’t stem from the feature’s social commentary critiquing hardcore fans of the first Joker. It came from people dissatisfied with what a slog the feature was, not to mention the deceptive marketing luring in people who didn’t want to see a musical movie. Heck, Folie a Deux DOES contain moments of fan service directed at DC devotees. One scene featured lawyer Harvey Dent with a half-burned face, for instance. Then there was Lee’s (Lady Gaga) final courtroom outfit harkening back to her comic book costume. It's certainly not the same as the Robin namedrop in The Dark Knight Rises. However, there are nods to the fans.

If anything, Joker: Folie a Deux bombing is less of “we must treat the fans like royalty!” and more just the career of Todd Phillips coming home to roost. Through his 20+ years in Hollywood, Phillips has often resorted to derivative material in his works. After all, he made a 2005 movie adaptation of Starsky & Hutch. His 2006 comedy School for Scoundrels was one of many post-2005 Billy Bob Thornton comedies cashing in on Bad Santa. Joker rode the wave of Taxi Driver. The Hangover: Part II just rehashes the first Hangover’s narrative. The creative timidity informing so many of his works resulted in an utterly lifeless musical Joker sequel that failed to commit to either its weighty themes or more grandiose musical impulses.

Who can say how Phillips is as a human being? As an artist, his works lean on the familiar and only wield an external sheen of provocativeness. Sometimes that quality resonated with audiences. Those first two Hangovers, the original Joker, and Road Trip were massive hits. Heck, most of his directorial efforts were profitable and resonated with the public. Other times, like with Folie a Deux and 2016’s War Dogs, it just comes across as reheated leftovers to general moviegoers. That’s how you create a box office bomb. Injecting lots and lots of DC Comics fan service into the proceedings wouldn’t have saved the feature financially.

If that’s all it took to make a hit, The Flash in 2023 would've made billions. Instead, it only grossed $266.5 million worldwide. That's a few hundred thousand dollars shy of what Batman Returns made globally 30+ years earlier (without accounting for inflation). With a marketing campaign emphasizing the project's Flashpoint Paradox-adapted storyline and Michael Keaton returning as Batman, The Flash couldn't have been friendlier to DC Comics geeks. Yet, the film, like Joker: Folie a Deux, was bad. An enjoyable effective nod to yesteryear (like the brief triumphant return of the Rocky theme music in the final Creed match) can be an exquisite garnish on a larger cinematic dish. Covering the whole meal in sweaty attempts to get the audience to cheer will just make people ask for a refund.

This reality is more pressing than ever to consider. Variety recently reported that studios are allegedly reaching out to “super-fans” of major franchises in advance to figure out how to make new movies or TV shows “less controversial”. Any big new swings could be smothered right away if these focus groups say that hard-core devotees might get miffed. Such a maneuver has emerged in the wake of relentless harassment and online trolling of new pop culture extensions of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Lord of the Rings. A significant portion of this harassment has concentrated on outsized outrage at productions emphasizing marginalized voices, especially ones starring women of color.

The Acolyte cast member Jodie Turner-Smith recently made the astute point that corporations like Disney need to take more of an aggressive stand against hate speech against performers of color. It’s not enough to just cast Halle Bailey, Rachel Zegler, Amandla Sternberg, and others in things and then turn a blind eye as the internet tears them to shreds. Save for a defense when Moses Ingram got harassed for her Obi-Wan Kenobi performance, big corporations rarely actively call out these hateful movements. If that aforementioned Variety piece is any indication, major studios and franchises are now keen to placate such people rather than challenge them.

Talking about Joker: Folie a Deux’s staggering failure as a byproduct of “ignoring the fans” is madness, absolute madness. Unfortunately, it’s just another way our modern pop culture landscape coddles people who turn brands into personal identities. Movie studios and media figures alike look at geeks on message boards as potential saviors of big franchises. They need to see them as just potential future viewers of a piece of art.

Great works of art, whether they’re artsy underground films or the best superhero movies, are not made out of recreating Reddit fan theories. Nor are they here to placate the status quo in terms of devotee desires. They shake things up. Star Wars: The Last Jedi became the best Star Wars movie ever because it dared to challenge expectations. The greatest Breaking Bad episodes refused to bend to what people wanted. Many of my favorite movies (Ikiru, Desert Hearts, Daisies, Moonlight, Lady Bird, etc.) are personal works guided by conviction and creativity. They are not constantly wondering what the audience will “want” next. There are many reasons Joker: Folie a Deux failed to land the punchline at the box office. Presuming it was because it wasn’t nice enough to Joker fanboys would just reinforce already toxic problems in the larger pop culture landscape.