Joker: Folie à Deux would have cost Warner Bros 200 million

The first film with Joaquin Phoenix had a budget of 60 million excluding advertising.

During a long article returning to the important deal between Tom Cruise and Warner Bros., Variety looks back at the strategy of the new studio boss, David Zaslav, who is ready to pay enormous sums for certain projects. All in blocking the release of other films if he judges that they will not benefit from it, like Batgirl or recent Bip-Bip and the Coyote with John Cena.

The article then cites several examples, including that of Joker: Folie à deuxthe sequel to the Todd Phillips film which grossed over $1 billion in 2019.

If the first opus had cost around 60 million dollars without counting its promotion, the budget for its sequel has swelled, reaching 200 million, estimates the American site. It is then specified that part of this sum is directly linked to the salaries of the two stars: “Sources tell us Joaquin Phoenix took home $20 million to reprise his role as the criminal clown and Lady Gaga will take home $12 million to play Harley Quinn.” Fees already announced in the press at the time of filming.

The screenwriter and director would also have seen his income increased for this sequel, but the rest of this spectacular budget increase is difficult to quantify. Is this linked to the different filming locations, this sequel being partly relocated from New York to LA? The delays caused by the actors’ strike? This is what weighs on other blockbusters currently, for example regarding the sequel to Gladiatorby Ridley Scott, whose weeks of hiatus cost Paramount dearly.

Variety does not present any other avenues for the moment, but specifies that “if Joker has earned over a billion dollars in revenue, musicals are more complicated. Warner, for example, lost 40 million this year with The Color Purple.” The theory doesn’t hold true every time, however, since the studio’s latest recent success, Wonka, was also a musical. Which crossed the 600 million revenue mark worldwide in recent days.

As for the status of “superhero movie” associated to Joker and its sequel, will it work in its favor? Or against him? A few years ago, comic book adaptations were so popular that the success of Joker 2 could have seemed assured on paper, but by costing more than three times the price of the first part, and by releasing after the flops of Black Adam, The Flash Or Aquaman 2, can we be so optimistic today? Its first scores, next October, will be closely scrutinized – like those of Deadpool 3 at competitor Marvel, moreover.

Joaquin Phoenix: “We can put the Joker in any sauce. In a musical, anywhere”

Among the other examples of ambitious projects defended by Warner this year, the site mentions Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film, currently being filmed with Leonardo DiCaprio, which would have a comfortable budget of 115 million. A significant sum, which could bear fruit given that the star is very popular all over the world, but which could just as easily not allow the producers to recoup their costs, Variety recalling that no film by the American filmmaker has crossed $80 million at the box office. His last, Licorice Pizza (2021), amassed 33 million, and the one worn by Tom Cruise, Magnoliahad earned just under 50 in 1999, produced by New Line.

We also discover that Bong Joon-ho obtained a budget of 150 million dollars for his sci-fi film with Robert Pattinson, Mickey 17. To repay himself, he will therefore have to experience great success in cinemas. Will he be able to record scores such as The Batman, with the same actor, who brought in more than 700 million tickets to the studio in 2022?

Variety finally cites the Frankenstein by Maggie Gyllenhaal, with Chrsitian Bale and Jessie Buckley, among the projects on which the studio bet big, by recovering it from Netflix, but does not specify the sum paid to produce it. The American media also gives the floor to an anonymous analyst, who supposes that this strategy of attracting very popular stars to blockbusters with enormous budgets would be a way of offering a prestigious showcase to future buyers. Indeed, rumors of a takeover by another Hollywood firm, or of a merger between two studios, have been circulating around Warner for several months.

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