'Joker: Folie a Deux' snares $40 million in domestic debut, less than half of first film

Audiences got the last laugh at the box office this weekend.

"Joker: Folie a Deux" stumbled to just $40 million in domestic ticket sales during its opening weekend, a far cry from the $96.2 million its predecessor brought in during its debut in 2019.

Just last month, the film was expected to haul-in closer to $70 million, but as reviews poured in, that estimated figure slumped to around $50 million.

"The creative risk that 'Joker: Folie a Deux' took is commendable, but very tough critical reviews as well as a mixed moviegoer reaction made for a challenging marketplace environment that rendered an otherwise respectable $40 million domestic debut a disappointment when balanced against the film's massive, reported budget and huge across the board expectations," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.

Director Todd Phillips' first "Joker" tallied a whopping $1.07 billion at the global box office five years ago on a modest budget of around $65 million. Its sequel carried a $200 million production price tag, not inlcuding marketing efforts.

Audiences and critics applauded Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga's performances in "Folie a Deux," but they felt the story had too many ideas and not enough plot.

"The decision to turn the sequel into a musical-slash-courtroom-drama is as perplexing as it sounds — and the results are so bad, they're actually fascinating," wrote Adam Nayman in his review of the film for The Ringer.

At present, "Folie a Deux" carries a 33% score on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes from 258 critical reviews and 31% audience score from more than 2,500 moviegoer reviews.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Rotten Tomatoes.