Joker 2’s Massive Budget Is A Major Gamble Despite Original $1bn Box Office Success

Warner Bros. Discovery is investing more financially into Joker: Folie à Deux compared to the first DC installment. While James Gunn’s DC Universe won’t arrive in theaters until next year, DC Studios’ Elseworlds projects are keeping the DC audience entertained for 2024. Following its massive success in 2019, Joaquin Phoenix is returning as the Clown Prince of Crime in this year’s Joker: Folie à Deux, which will be the only DC movie outing for the year.

Picking up some time after the first Joker movie, Joker: Folie à Deux will see this iteration of Batman’s most famous antagonist meet Harleen Quinzel, a.k.a. Harley Quinn, played by Lady Gaga. With Lady Gaga being the second cinematic Harley, following Margot Robbie’s take in the DCEU movie timeline, the audience has been waiting for nearly two years to see how this incarnation in Joker: Folie à Deux will be handled. However, as more information is starting to emerge about Joker: Folie à Deux, it begs the question of how much Warner Bros. Discovery is relying on this film’s success.

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Joker: Folie À Deux – Release Date, Cast & Everything We Know

Joker: Folie à Deux’s star-studded cast, exciting premise, and doubled budget from its predecessor all point towards a truly promising release.

Joker 2 Being A Musical Is A Major Gamble For WBD

As there has been a lot of debate about Hollywood potentially suffering from superhero fatigue, the Joker: Folie à Deux cast is taking the genre in a new direction. For the first time in Marvel/DC comic book movie history, Joker: Folie à Deux will be a musical while still also being a psychological thriller focused on Arthur Fleck and Harley. As exciting as that may sound on paper, it is a major risk for Warner Bros. Discovery to be taking right now.

Following box office disasters like The Flash movie in 2023, having Joker: Folie à Deux be tackled as a musical without knowing how the audience will respond to it can go either way. Joker: Folie à Deux could always become another smash hit, bringing some fresh air into the comic book medium. On the other hand, Joker: Folie à Deux could be a failed experiment, as many audience members don’t associate the Joker character with musicals.

Why Joker 2’s Budget Is $200 Million

Variety reports that Joker: Folie à Deux allegedly has a budget of $200 million dollars, which is almost four times the size of the budget for 2019’s Joker. Many are bound to wonder why Warner Bros. Discovery has increased the budget to the size of what a normal superhero movie costs these days. For starters, Phoenix is being paid $20 million for his reprisal as Joker, while Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn gig will earn her $12 million.

That leaves $168 million dollars in Joker: Folie à Deux’s budget, likely divided up into building sets, as this is a Gotham City based in the 1980s, meaning they have to turn locations into that setting. As production also took place in New York again, those are also hefty costs for the studio to pay, and there will likely be a lot of money put into the musical aspects, too. Once the Joker: Folie à Deux trailer is released, it might give a better idea of how large in scale this DC movie will be compared to the 2019 installment.