JOKER 2 Costs $200 Million!

[AndyDursin]

Found it hilarious the "gritty" JOKER is being supplanted by JOKER 2's $200 million musical extravaganza budget (complete with $25 mil payday for Joaquin Phoenix)...over 3x the budget of the hugely overpraised original.

What I find funny though is this notion "the super hero movie is about to make a comeback!!" because a) there won't be many of them and b) DEADPOOL 3 and JOKER 2 will make all this money. Like that will make up for Disney's crap track record of THE MARVELS, THE ETERNALS and all their other garbage, not to mention the WBDC bombs of the last few years.

Problem is -- neither is a traditional "super hero" genre film at ALL. Both are R rated. DEADPOOL is a comedy. JOKER will try to find some major audience crossover with Lady Gaga. These aren't PG-13 rated films aimed at the genre's target audience of 15 year old teenagers and aging 50-60 something fanboys who wear T-shirts to their opening day.

Anyway I disliked JOKER 1 so won't be paying to see it. As for DEADPOOL the trailer is shockingly lame and the joke looks like it's run dry. Leave it to Disney to zap Deadpool after doing the same to Star Wars and the rest of the Marvel universe.

[Eric W.]

I think it's all long since run its course. Naturally we can expect Disney to make it even worse.

[Paul MacLean]

Found it hilarious the "gritty" JOKER is being supplanted by JOKER 2's $200 million musical extravaganza budget (complete with $25 mil payday for Joaquin Phoenix)...over 3x the budget of the hugely overpraised original.

A musical?

Since the first one was a ripoff of Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, does this mean the sequel will crib from New York, New York?

[Monterey Jack]

Meanwhile, the budget for this summer's Despicable Me 4 is around $80 million. The original cost $69 million fourteen years ago.

[Monterey Jack]

Ridley Scott says, "Hold my pint..."

[AndyDursin]

So happy to not see this as I hated the first one and this is getting savaged as being utterly pointless (more than the first one?!?)

They might be losing their $$ after opening weekend too with that budget. Oh well everybody got paid well!

[Monterey Jack]

You KNOW that a significant amount of moviegoers will walk out when the characters start to sing.

[AndyDursin]

The perfect movie Gaga fans will hate because it has The JOKER (or whatever he is lol) and JOKER fans will hate because it has Gaga.

[AndyDursin]

I may have to see this after all. Apparently a turkey of epic proportions, plunging down to 39% even on the tomato meter.

Keep in mind Vic here loves everything...and even he gives it a 2/10!!!

[TaranofPrydain]

The perfect movie Gaga fans will hate because it has The JOKER (or whatever he is lol) and JOKER fans will hate because it has Gaga.

I loathed the first one, so I won't be watching, but the film managed to tick everyone off: fans of the first film, fans of comic books, fans of musicals, fans of prison films, fans of Gaga, fans of courtroom dramas, and it ends in a pointless nihilistic ending that makes one think that the film should conclude with the Peggy Lee song "Is That All There Is". This is a film for absolutely nobody. It just might go down in WB infamy with Exorcist II: The Heretic.

[TaranofPrydain]

You KNOW that a significant amount of moviegoers will walk out when the characters start to sing.

I saw a tweet earlier today which said that more audience members left every time another song started.

[AndyDursin]

[AndyDursin]

1/2 star (thats 0.5) review in the Boston Globe mentioned people walking out. And apparently it's not just the songs, the film itself is boring and pointless.

This could be the most instantly derided sequel since Exorcist II!

[TaranofPrydain]

1/2 star review in the Boston Globe mentioned people walking out. And apparently it's not just the songs, the film itself is boring and pointless.

This could be the most instantly derided sequel since Exorcist II!

I might as well share a couple user reviews from another website I am on.... I apologize for the liberal use of the word "sh!t" in the one, but I guess it describes the film well.

An excruciating, dour and seemingly interminable experience, this is a downgrade in every possible way from its original (which I wasn't a fan of to begin with). I think the concept of making the musical numbers reflect Arthur's state of mind is actually quite interesting - the problem is how uninspired and just plain boring Phillips make each one. There are a lot of people that seem to have a prejudice against musicals, and this one should be exhibit A for them. Phillips does not find a way to make any of the numbers compelling on screen, and by the time the sixth or seventh song comes up, you just feel like you've had enough. It doesn't help that the rest of the film relegates Arthur and us, the audience, to either a rote prison or a snooze worthy courtroom drama that basically serves to remind us of events we already know about from the first film. The cinematography might be pretty, but it's not enough to distract us from the sheer desert of ideas within this narrative. Everyone just seems to be going through the motions, when they're not outright sabotaged by the film's poor writing (outside of his newfound infatuation with Lee, Phoenix is basically given the same beats to play as he did in part one). Lady Gaga is absolutely wasted, reduced to a glorified karaoke singer whose presence becomes grating by the film's halfway point. Other reliable supporting actors show up in underwritten archetypes to try to lend some gravitas to proceedings, to little effect. It's all just baffling, the entire endeavor.

This is probably the worst film I've ever seen in a movie theater by my own will, so I guess I only have myself to blame.

To even call this a film it's an insult to the art form.

Truly 2 hours of nothing and the reason I won't ever be able to defend movie musicals to my friends from now on.

The only good part of this was counting how many people left the room every time a new song started and the only thing good thing to come out of this was seeing Joker die at the end, ensuring there will be no more sequels.

That said, Gaga comes out completely unscathed with what was actually a very competent wasted performance.

Phoenix is ****, rehashing the worst traits from his award winning performance, with none of the pathos that at least made the first round bearable; the direction is ****, without a fully committed vision to any of the genres it tried to play with; the editing is ****, jumping from scene to scene without any sense of pace and putting musical numbers back to back that had nothing to do with each other; the cinematography, while good, it's completely unoriginal, therefore is ****; the remaining performances have absolutely nothing to work with as their characters are completely inexistent, without a shred of characterization, thanks to a shitty script that is full of cringe inducing moments.

The ending was laughably bad, but I guess that was on pair with the rest of the film.

[Monterey Jack]

I'll give my thoughts tomorrow, as I have a thing for cinematic follies, even if I hate them (like the baffling Megalopolis).