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The box office success of 'Joker' is astonishing

Middleman

Middleman

Banned
Jun 14, 2019
928
In a Hollywood landscape that's been dominated by Marvel, Disney, F&F and other fantasy/popcorn flicks since 2010, I'm amazed that something as grim as Joker has done so well and I think it's pretty refreshing.

Make no mistake, Joker is still unabashedly a comic book movie, but is by far the darkest movie to top $700m over the past half-decade.

Now that the Avengers saga has ended, do you think that will create room for more films with a harder edge to make big bucks or do you think this is a complete anomaly? What do you put its success down to?
 
Shrennin

Shrennin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,683
I hope it inspires DC/WB to take more risks like Joker. The Black Label line of movies.

Also, have Phoenix play the Joker in Reeves' Batman. Just have him be inspired by the one in the 80s or something.
 
Admiral Woofington

Admiral Woofington

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
14,892
Im all for judging the movie on its own basis yourself, but I'll always wonder how much the constant negativity from folks who hadnt watched the movie and from those who wanted to read too much into it got others to watch it out of spite. Once again this is besides the quality of the film, but lord knows we've seen it before where people go support media out of spite.
 
Gundam

Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
The Joker is a sensational character with a rich history in movies. Plus, it's a comic book thing. The success isn't that surprising to me at all.
 

Dekim

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,301
All the fear mongering and moral panic from the media and people on social media certainly did this movie a lot of favors.
 
Border

Border

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
14,859
Kudos to all the obsessive "concerned" people and press members that kept the movie in the public consciousness for the month prior to release and a couple weeks after it came out.
 
dark_prinny

dark_prinny

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,374
People like good movies. And the Joker it's a fantastic one.
 
subpar spatula

subpar spatula

Refuses to Wash his Ass
Member
Oct 26, 2017
22,129
joker has 489 critic reviews. how did this movie get that many reviews? it's more than endgame by 3. how!?
 
RastaMentality

RastaMentality

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,128
Wonder if it does the same without the comic references.

Especially the unnecessary batman scenes beyond just Thomas Wayne
 
PMS341

PMS341

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt-account
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
6,634
How in the world are you astonished that a comic book movie was successful in 2019

Like really think about that lmao
 
Keldroc

Keldroc

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,987
With the success of Venom and now this, the first weekend of October will be a dedicated release date for "dark and gritty" mediocre supervillain movies with a strong central performance an artsy bent.

dark_prinny said:
People like good movies. And the Joker it's a fantastic one.
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And nonsensical takes like this are what will make that trend a permanent fixture in the release schedule. Joker is the emptiest film I've seen all year. No point of view, nothing to say, just a big Scorsese fanwank without a single idea in its head. Say what you will about the big blockbuster superhero movies, but they at least have a point of view on things. Even Venom, as slapdash as it was, had an idea of what it wanted to be about. Todd Phillips was so busy ripping off Taxi Driver and King of Comedy he didn't realize what he was making.

PMS341 said:
How in the world are you astonished that a comic book movie was successful in 2019

Like really think about that lmao
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Because it's not a comic book movie, it's a Taxi Driver/King of Comedy fanfiction with a comic character's name slapped on it. Obviously it worked, but nobody's giving Todd Phillips $55 million to make this movie without the Joker name attached.
 

Deleted member 5359

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,326
It did well because it plays to DC's strengths, historically. The people who made it obviously understood that and did a great job of translating it to the screen.
 
UltraMagnus

UltraMagnus

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
15,670
Not really to me.

The Joker has always been a huge box office draw, the whole story of Batman '89 is Jack Nicholson stealing the show and basically driving the film.

Heath Ledger obviously was hugely popular in The Dark Knight.

It's not terribly surprising to me a Joker film that isn't completely awful would do well. I mean Venon just made $800+ million too, lol, why shouldn't a reasonably decent Joker film do at least the same type of business.

The Joker has been DC's 2nd most popular character, really probably even equal to Batman for no.1 in popularity for a long, long time now since the late 80s at least I'd say. He overtook characters like Superman for popularity ages ago.
 
dark_prinny

dark_prinny

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,374
Keldroc said:
With the success of Venom and now this, the first weekend of October will be a dedicated release date for "dark and gritty" mediocre supervillain movies with a strong central performance an artsy bent.



And nonsensical takes like this are what will make that trend a permanent fixture in the release schedule. Joker is the emptiest film I've seen all year. No point of view, nothing to say, just a big Scorsese fanwank without a single idea in its head. Say what you will about the big blockbuster superhero movies, but they at least have a point of view on things. Even Venom, as slapdash as it was, had an idea of what it wanted to be about. Todd Phillips was so busy ripping off Taxi Driver and King of Comedy he didn't realize what he was making.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

🤣
 
Strangelove_77

Strangelove_77

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,392
The Joker is the most popular villain of all time besides maybe the Devil and this movie was made to be the least comic booky comic book movie ever. Its almost ashamed of it. It's a fantastic formula really for people who reject more comic booky movies.
Even without Phoenix it would have succeeded. Would it be as good? God no.
 
Cipherr

Cipherr

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,436
I'm happy for it, after seeing it, its not a bad film, and it deserves to do well. Best thing out of DC comics movie division in a while anyway.

Glad the controversy didn't hold it back.
 
PMS341

PMS341

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt-account
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
6,634
Keldroc said:
Because it's not a comic book movie, it's a Taxi Driver/King of Comedy fanfiction with a comic character's name slapped on it. Obviously it worked, but nobody's giving Todd Phillips $55 million to make this movie without the Joker name attached.
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It's a grimdark comic book movie that set up shots like a PostSecret JPEG, but it's still a comic book movie. It is a Joker movie, who is a comic book character. It may not be as "quippy" as the MCU films but it still is a movie based on a comic character, for better or worse. You are right that it would not have been greenlit otherwise, though.
 

Deleted member 4353

User-requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,559
Keldroc said:
With the success of Venom and now this, the first weekend of October will be a dedicated release date for "dark and gritty" mediocre supervillain movies with a strong central performance an artsy bent.



And nonsensical takes like this are what will make that trend a permanent fixture in the release schedule. Joker is the emptiest film I've seen all year. No point of view, nothing to say, just a big Scorsese fanwank without a single idea in its head. Say what you will about the big blockbuster superhero movies, but they at least have a point of view on things. Even Venom, as slapdash as it was, had an idea of what it wanted to be about. Todd Phillips was so busy ripping off Taxi Driver and King of Comedy he didn't realize what he was making.



Because it's not a comic book movie, it's a Taxi Driver/King of Comedy fanfiction with a comic character's name slapped on it. Obviously it worked, but nobody's giving Todd Phillips $55 million to make this movie without the Joker name attached.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


giphy.gif
 

Normal

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,296
I'd say it's ResetEra's Black Panther. They all had to see it. I expected the success.
 
NinjaScooter

NinjaScooter

Member
Oct 25, 2017
54,163
Once the positive word of mouth and talk of Phoenix' performance started to get out, it wasn't all that surprising. It's grim, but it's also a comic book movie. The role of "Joker" has become an iconic one in Hollywood that's going to draw attention and get people in the door where a standard R rated character study about a villainous psychopath wouldn't.
 
Pai Pai Master

Pai Pai Master

Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,296
Atlanta GA
Its not that surprising, The Joker is a key part of the DC movie that most people consider to be the very best one. And his part in that saga was cut short so people have been hungry for a new good Joker centric movie since 2008.
 
Wishbone Ash

Wishbone Ash

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 29, 2017
3,845
Michigan
Admiral Woofington said:
Im all for judging the movie on its own basis yourself, but I'll always wonder how much the constant negativity from folks who hadnt watched the movie and from those who wanted to read too much into it got others to watch it out of spite. Once again this is besides the quality of the film, but lord knows we've seen it before where people go support media out of spite.
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Assuming you're talking about the world as a whole and not basing this off of Era/Twitter/your choice of bubble, do you really believe it would have performed significantly differently?

I think it's impossible to deny that there was a pretty crazy amount of hyperbolic posturing all over the mainstream media in the weeks leading up to its release, but half of that was generated by the press for the movie itself, and I can't blame anyone for playing that hustle up for any type of project. It just seemed to work out well here-- just not from spite.

(I haven't seen it, nor am I very interested in seeing it, either)
 

Ooopsklo

Banned
Aug 20, 2019
1,078
Keldroc said:
With the success of Venom and now this, the first weekend of October will be a dedicated release date for "dark and gritty" mediocre supervillain movies with a strong central performance an artsy bent.



And nonsensical takes like this are what will make that trend a permanent fixture in the release schedule. Joker is the emptiest film I've seen all year. No point of view, nothing to say, just a big Scorsese fanwank without a single idea in its head. Say what you will about the big blockbuster superhero movies, but they at least have a point of view on things. Even Venom, as slapdash as it was, had an idea of what it wanted to be about. Todd Phillips was so busy ripping off Taxi Driver and King of Comedy he didn't realize what he was making.



Because it's not a comic book movie, it's a Taxi Driver/King of Comedy fanfiction with a comic character's name slapped on it. Obviously it worked, but nobody's giving Todd Phillips $55 million to make this movie without the Joker name attached.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You're one salty motherfucker
 
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