The first trailers for Warner Bros’ and Paramount’s big budget fall films, Joker 2 and Gladiator 2, ranked among the highest trailer viewership for both respective studios. But with Joker 2 cratering due to low interest and toxic WOM, what are the chances that Gladiator 2 follows the same pattern?
by InternationalEnd5816
14 Comments
Does anyone (other than WB) expect Gladiator 2 to be a hit?
Haven’t really seen that many predictions over $400M-ish.
Don’t have faith in Gladiator II to begin with. Ridley’s track record hasn’t been good recently and this has the same writer from Napoleon. Combine that with a reported 310m budget and this thing has a high chance of being DOA.
The first Joker 2 trailer being WB’s biggest trailer since Barbie really made me believe it had a shot at the billion dollar club.
I think (or I hope at this point) that this would have great reviews and WOM. But its budget and R rating would definitely make it difficult to break even.
Very doubtful on Gladiator 2. Insane budget, Ridley’s awkward recent track record, the first trailer received heavy mockery, and Paul Mescal is a nobody to everyone who isn’t the FilmUpdates Twitter account
I think gravity might be defied at the November box office. We’ll see how far things go after that
Gladiator 2 isn’t a musical though
I think Joker only crated cuz early reviews were mixed/negative and they basically gave up afterwards. Gladiator 2 is not premiering at a film festival a month in advance, there is time to build up.
WOM?
The Covid budget is gonna kill Gladiator, but I think it’s got a decent chance if only because it looks like “More Gladiator” in a way that Joker 2 deliberately swerved from.
I have trouble seeing Gladiator 2 being called “boring.”
Honestly I really don’t know, I feel at a loss when it comes to Gladiator
What does Joker 2 have to do with Gladiator 2? Even if it does crater, it won’t be a pattern. They’re not related except they’re both big budget sequels.
The budget is hard to get around if you’re doing the 2.5x math, but Gladiator is beloved by normies in a way that very few films are. Half the dads in America can still quote the “and I will have my vengeance” speech.
…do we really think *there’s no other context* that could appy to why Joker 2’s favorability with general audiences might have declined between now and then?
Also, not for nothing, but haven’t we already established long, long ago that ‘Trailer views’ as a metric for determining anything is pretty bunk, mostly because the stat itself is fabricated in general? Not only due to the constant change in the way “view” is measured over time, but the fact these articles tend to only exist due to the press releases being emailed to these writers BY THE FIRMS working for the movies, who are presenting the “data” being printed in these articles verbatim for them to quote.
This is like yesterday when folks were trying to figure out how to tie what’s happening on Joker 2 to the upcoming Superman movie despite Joker 2 having absolutely zero to do with that film in any way. What’s the premise here? That because Gladiator 2 had a highly viewed set of trailers, it will also tank in the exact same way Joker 2 is about to, despite the fact there is absolutely nothing, otherwise, they have in common other than the fact the two film’s press teams both sent the trades an email with juiced “stats” about how many people “watched” the trailer on social media?
Is that the premise we’re supposed to be entertaining?
I’d be shocked if it happens to Gladiator. It’s a legacy sequel with crossover appeal. The original is well regarded and the 40+ audience will almost certainly go to see it in the cinema.
It’s also a ‘cinema movie’ with large scale spectacle that they can.pitchbas an event film. Will it under perform? Possibly. Will it crash and burn? I’d be shocked if it does.
Joker got to a billion through really strong word of mouth, a built in audience AND crossover appeal (gritty 70s aesthetic and portraying itself as ‘real cinema’) essentially it managed to make crazy money by pitching itself as a comic book movie to fans and not a comic book movie to more casual film fans, which was exceptional marketing.
This is where the sequel falls down because to make a billion again it needs to attract all those same people again and more. Will all the casual fans who went to see it return for a sequel? Maybe but probably not
Will all the comicbook fans return for a musical? Almost certainly not.
The biggest issue is that studios just won’t market a film as a musical, it happens again and again because they are usually DOA and don’t have a massive built in audience any more. We’ve seen it with Sweeney Todd and, more recently, Mean Girls. The studios will almost try to trick an audience into attending. That’s fine for most films, they aren’t expected to make huge amounts and just ride out the negative social post of people complaining they got tricked into seeing a musical, but for a film that needs positive feedback and a good 2nd, 3rd and 4th week to make a billion, it’s the kiss of death.