"Inconsistency" was the word of the day today during the Warner Bros. Discovery earnings. CEO David Zaslav acknowledged that the company's film business has been hit-or-miss lately, with Joker: Folie à Deux in particular being "disappointing".
"Inconsistency also remains an issue at our motion picture studio, as reinforced recently by the disappointing results of Joker 2," he said during the earnings call. Zaslav did not give further details, but we can expect to hear more about exactly how disappointing those results were on the company's next earnings call, which will include that impact.
Zaslav's remarks relate back to WB's issues with film inconsistency over the last year. Dune 2 and Godzilla x Kong were hits earlier this year, but Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga bombed at the box office, The Watchers was critically panned, and films like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Twisters did well enough, but couldn't match the success of Barbie at the same time last year. Taken as a whole, WB's film slate has been a bit all over the place.
Calling Joker 2's results "disappointing" may be a bit of an understatement, too. Joker: Folie à Deux launched in October to a weekend box office of just $37.8 million domestically, less than half of the first Joker's $96.2 million opening. Matters did not improve from there, with the film dipping further in its second weekend to just $7 million domestically, falling to the #3 box office spot as Terrifier debuted at #1. It almost immediately raced to DVD and Blu-Ray less than a month after its opening weekend.
Joker: Folie à Deux: First Trailer Screenshots
At IGN, we weren't exactly in love with Joker 2, saying it "wastes its potential as a movie musical, a courtroom drama, and a sequel that has anything meaningful to say about or add to the first Joker" in our 5/10 review. However, not everyone panned it – infamous film lover Hideo Kojima has said he thinks its reputation will change over the next few decades, and Quentin Tarantino unironically loves the movie.
Warner Bros. Discovery reported Q3 revenue of $9.6 billion, down 3% year-over-year. Its theatrical revenue was down 40% year-over-year due to lower box office performance of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Twisters compared to Barbie last year. We won't see the financial impact of Joker 2 reflected in the results until next earnings, as it launched in the current quarter of October. We've also reported on WB Discovery's "substantially underperforming" games business, and WB's plans to turn it around. Its streaming business is doing better – it added 7.2 million subscribers in the third quarter.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.