People Are Contrasting The "Joker 2" Box Office Flop Discourse With How We Talk About Female-Led Movies
by Natasha Jokic · BuzzFeedPeople are drawing comparisons between how the box office debut of Joker: Folie à Deux is being discussed versus movies like 2023's The Marvels.
The sequel to the Joker movie opened this weekend to $40 million domestically. Some publications have called it a "shocker" and a "bomb," while others have gone for words like "lackluster." Its budget was $200 million.
Meanwhile, The Marvels opened to $46 million domestically. It was quickly called a "box office bomb" and a "meltdown" for the MCU. It went on to get over $206 million worldwide against a $200 million budget.
Both are comic book movies, but with some big differences. The Marvels release came amid the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, meaning that the movie's stars could not promote it the way that they typically would. It's worth noting that Marvel also usually outperforms DC in the box office, with The Marvels ultimately grossing its lowest box office for the studio.
However, it would be impossible not to note that The Marvels was led by three women and that much of the social media commentary on it was misogynistic. Director Nia DaCosta spoke about receiving "racist abuse." As Forbes put it at the time, "The movie has been targeted by some right-wing critics who accuse the female-led film, which stars multiple women of color, of being 'woke'" — with some on the right going as far as to blame the diversity and not-male-ness of the movie's stars as the reason for its low box office.
Subsequently, some have taken to social media to discuss how differently people often talk about the box office misses of male-led versus female-led movies:
People just don't want supermovies starring straight, white men :(. No other factors at all, no siree.
That's how this works, isn't it? https://t.co/Zlz84fNKdE
— Diamanda Hagan (@Diamandahagan) October 6, 2024
Sony Pictures Releasing / Marvel Entertainment / Courtesy Everett Collection / Warner Bros. / Via Twitter: @Diamandahagan
When shit like this, or Morbius, or Aquaman 2 flop, people have a chuckle and keep it moving. When The Marvels or Madam Web flops, we need to stop and have ‘discourse’ on the ‘viability’ of women led genre films. Fucking tiring. https://t.co/t4o0p5tLnc
— Words-In-Progress (@Bwalya_II) October 5, 2024
Warner Bros. / Courtesy Everett Collection / Via Twitter: @Bwalya_II
One user also pointed out how Variety's headline — "'Joker 2' Tops International Box Office With 81.1 Million" — was starkly at odds with how the box office numbers for The Marvels was reported.
The Industry needs to stop working like this. https://t.co/FMrrVUEk3V pic.twitter.com/CbKBPQQuc0
— Lucas Brown Eyes (@LucasBrownEyes) October 6, 2024
Laura Radford / Marvel / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection / Via Twitter: @LucasBrownEyes
If we're comparing apples to apples, Variety's headline for The Marvels at the time was, "‘The Marvels' Flops at International Box Office With $63 Million, Dramatically Behind 2019’s 'Captain Marvel'." The discrepancy in numbers comes from whether or not publications use the metric of global box (i.e. including domestic) office or international box office. The Marvels scored better than Joker: Folie à Deux domestically, whereas the latter did better internationally.
Another pointed out how Francis Ford Coppola quickly came to Joker director Todd Phillips's defense, while much of the industry stayed quiet on Nia.
the way the media is babying Todd Phillips and avoiding to frame the Joker numbers in a negative light but was so quick to create a smear campaign about Nia DaCosta even BEFORE The Marvels came out. it's almost like double standards are real who would've thought! https://t.co/wtgs7dSeoM
— sandro 🚀 (@OLSENSCTRL) October 7, 2024