Did James Gunn ruin Joker: Folie à Deux? The DC Studios co-chair has taken to social media to clarify his involvement with the ill-fated sequel.
Joker: Folie à Deux is one of the most perplexing films to come out of 2024. The project is a sequel to 2019’s Joker film starring Joaquin Phoenix as the titular Clown Prince of Crime, which made over a billion dollars for DC Studios (at the time; DC Films). Many thought that, while unnecessary, a follow-up film would almost be guaranteed to make a profit at the box office.
Sadly, it seems not even fans are laughing at the fate of Joker: Folie à Deux. The film has been absolutely panned by critics and audiences alike, with both scores on Rotten Tomatoes sitting in the low 30s, and the film’s Cinemascore being an absolutely abysmal “D”. It’s the biggest flop in a long line of failures for DC Studios, making many question what exactly went wrong.
Did DC Studios Change Joker: Folie à Deux?
Eyes immediately snapped to James Gunn, the current co-chair and figurehead of DC Studios. Given he took over the film division during production of Joker: Folie à Deux, many assumed that he had some form of influence on the final product. However, according to a recent Threads post from Gunn himself, he had no involvement on the film whatsoever, nor is it even a DC Studios film.
“Because it’s not a DC Studios film,” Gunn wrote when asked why the studio’s logo was absent from Joker: Folie à Deux before clarifying. “Well I get why they would think that. They know [The] Penguin is DC Studios, and The Batman 2 is. All future films with DC characters will be DC Studios.”
While it’s good to hear that James Gunn and DC Studios weren’t the cause of Joker: Folie à Deux‘s poor box office performance, it’s a shame that the story of a box office triumph has to end in such a humiliating flop. With the sequel currently projected to have a run similar to that of Morbius, it’ll likely be a failure that will go down in the history books, even outside of the halls of comic book media.
Joker: Folie à Deux is now playing in theaters. Stay tuned for the latest news regarding the sequel and make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more content!
