Joker 2 digital release date revealed as ticket sales collapse worldwide

Nobody’s laughing now: Joker 2 has just revealed its digital release date, and you’ll be able to watch it at home less than a month after it arrived in theaters.

Five years ago, Joker became one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, garnered critical acclaim, and earned multiple Oscar nominations (it even won a couple, including Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix).

Joker: Folie à Deux premiered in cinemas earlier this month, its highly anticipated follow-up with Lady Gaga starring alongside Phoenix as Harley Quinn. It should have been foolproof.

To call it a disaster wouldn’t be an exaggeration. It’s currently sitting at 33% on Rotten Tomatoes (with a 32% audience rating), it was just dethroned by Terrifier 3 at the box office, and Warner Bros is projected to lose anywhere between $150-200 million.

Joker 2 digital release date

Joker 2 will be available to buy or rent on-demand from Tuesday, October 29. That’s less than four weeks since the start of its theatrical run.

Warner Bros.

It didn’t get off to a great start. With unenthused reviews and even worse word of mouth, it opened with $37m in North America and $77m worldwide. That’s a huge step down from Joker’s $240m worldwide opening in 2019 (not to mention it’s less than Morbius, The Marvels, and The Flash).

Unfortunately, unlike what D:Ream famously sang, things haven’t got better. In its second weekend, it earned just $7 million in the US – that’s a loss of over 80%, the worst drop for a comic book movie ever.

What this means for Joker 2

It’s a grim forecast for Joker 2’s remaining time in theaters. With Terrifier 3 dominating screens and Smile 2 hitting cinemas this week, expect its showtimes to be cut down quite dramatically.

Ordinarily, movies getting a VOD release so soon after arriving in theaters attract a lot of criticism; after all, if you can’t allow a film to find an audience, why will it perform any better via on-demand platforms?

With Joker 2, it makes sense. Warner Bros needs to recoup some of their financial losses, and making it available as a PVOD title (that means it’ll cost around $24.99 to buy) is a surefire way to target audiences who weren’t willing to give it a chance on the big screen.

As for its release on a streaming service, Joker 2 will come to Max first, but it’s unclear exactly when it’ll be added to the platform.

Find out why this is the worst scene in Joker 2, and why people think Joker 2 is so bad. You can also read more about Tim Dillon’s role in Joker 2, and whether or not there’ll be a Joker 3.