“Joker: Folie a Deux” is rated D by moviegoers on CinemaScore

With a D rating on CinemaScore, “Joker: Folie à Deux” received from moviegoers was the lowest mark ever given to a big comic book film.

Why does this matter? The studio behind the movie, Warner Bros., stands to suffer a lot.

• Producers apparently spent about $200 million on the follow-up to the highly praised first “Joker” from 2019.But savage assessments of the new film hampered its American box office launch this past weekend. It attracted just $40 million, much less than estimates of $50 million to $70 million.

According to Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros.’s head of domestic distribution, “the movie didn’t land with audiences the way we wanted it to.” WSJ.

• Positively, “Joker: Folie à Deux” sold $81.1 million in tickets, doing even better in foreign markets.And “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the follow-up to the 1988 blockbuster, has still doing well in theatres.

The overall picture is that Warner Bros. Discovery, which recently recorded billions last quarter in the value of its conventional TV and cable operations, is more depending on movies.From 26.8% in 2022 to 28% of 2023 income, the split represents a 4.5% drop in networks business to 48.7%.