Joker 2’s Failure Highlights Sexist Double Standard in Comic Book Movies

On October 6, the Sunday after Joker: Folie à Deux opened in theaters, the movie was looking at a terrible box office weekend and an even worse audience reaction. The Hollywood Reporter posted a story about how director Francis Ford Coppola liked the Joker sequel. The caption on The Hollywood Reporter‘s X account said, “Hang in there, Todd Phillips.” Many called out The Hollywood Reporter for the framing of this story, particularly in response to how they covered the box office fallout to The Marvels in 2023, particularly with the headline “Why ‘Marvels’ Director Nia DaCosta Bailed on the Cast-and-Crew Screening.” The article seemed to put all of the blame for The Marvels flopping on DaCosta and was accused of misrepresenting the situation. This certainly highlighted how white male directors are treated kinder than women of color.

Still, it also spoke to another case of how female-centric superhero movies are treated far more harshly than male-led ones. While The Marvels was a box office disappointment, it performed better on its opening weekend than Joker: Folie à Deux; headlines about The Marvels were much more doom-and-gloom. Everything was put on the shoulders of The Marvels, where Joker 2 was treated as a one-off. The release and fallout of Joker 2 highlights a sexist double standard in how people talk about female-led superhero movies, one that is sadly as old as the genre itself. Long story short, when a male-led superhero movie like Morbius, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, or Joker: Folie à Deux flops, is because of several factors. When female-led ones like The Marvels, Birds of Prey, or Madame Web flop, the blame is solely on whom the lead is.

Female Superhero Movies Are Always Held to a Higher Standard

In 2017, after 76 years in comics, Wonder Woman finally got her solo feature film with Patty Jenkins’s feature film, Wonder Woman. Despite being part of DC’s Trinity alongside Superman and Batman, she had struggled to make it to the big screen. Superman and Batman had multiple films by the time Wonder Woman got her solo movie. Wonder Woman remained stuck in development hell even though lesser-known heroes from DC’s pages, like Swamp Thing, Constantine, and Green Lantern, got the big screen treatment. Meanwhile, the MCU wouldn’t have a female hero in a film title until their 20th film, Ant-Man and the Wasp, with the following movie, Captain Marvel, being the first female-led solo project in the franchise after 11 years.

For years, the poor box office and critical performance of female-led superhero movies like Supergirl, Catwoman, and Elektra were used to justify not greenlighting a Wonder Woman or Black Widow film. The common idea was those movies did poorly because audiences didn’t like female-led superheroes, and not that the actual quality of the films was bad. Bad movies based around male-led superhero movies never stopped the genre or were blamed for their box office disappointment. Films like Batman & Robin, The Spirit, and Jonah Hex never risked other male-led superhero movies like The Flash and Green Lantern getting made.

This is how it goes, as male-led superhero movies aren’t forced to carry the weight of the genre on their shoulders as their female-led counterparts are. Three Punisher movies were made and bombed before Wonder Woman got her solo film. Madame Web was bad, but it is not like Morbius is any better. Moreover, individuals on the internet tried to blame Madame Web for being bad because it was about a group of women, but the same reasoning isn’t used for box office and critical disappointments like Joker 2, 2019’s Hellboy, or The Flash.

The standard is also much higher for these types of movies. Birds of Prey was released in theaters on February 7, 2020, and grossed $33 million in its opening weekend. For an R-rated superhero film, that is a decent number, but many were quick to label it a disappointment or a flop because, at the time, it was the lowest-grossing opening weekend for a film in the DCEU (it is now greater than Blue Beetle and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom). It was always unrealistic to expect Birds of Prey to open to the same numbers as Wonder Woman, Aquaman, or Shazam!, given those were PG-13 films aimed at a wider audience. Yet many at the time did and still do.

Furthermore, Birds of Prey performed similarly to another R-rated comic book adaptation, Kingsman: The Secret Service. That film opened on February 12, 2015, and grossed $36 million in its opening weekend, three million above Birds of Prey. Both movies had similar budgets. Kingsman had an $81 million budget, while Birds of Prey cost $84 million. Kingsman did outgross Birds of Prey, but it also had a longer time in theaters as Birds of Prey had its box office run cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, closing down cinemas all over the globe. Yet Kingsman is labeled a box office hit and spawned a franchise, but Birds of Prey incorrectly gets labeled a box office flop despite grossing $205 million in just six weeks of release.

The Marvels Got Far More Bad Press Than Joker 2

Another important thing to note is the level of scrutiny that female-led superhero movies face in terms of box office analysis from some individuals. The comparison between The Marvels and Joker 2 is fitting here. Both were sequels to 2019 films that grossed over $1 billion worldwide. Despite that, some will say Captain Marvel was not as beloved as Joker. While Joker did land 11 Academy Award nominations, it would be disingenuous to say nobody liked Captain Marvel as it grossed $426 million domestically and $1.13 billion worldwide, outgrossing Joker, which did still manage to bring in $335 million domestically and $1.07 billion worldwide.

As for their sequels, both massively underperformed and are flops, but The Marvels did better. The Marvels opened to $46 million, above Joker: Folie à Deux‘s $37.8 million domestic opening weekend. Even the audience reaction to The Marvels was better, as it got a B CinemaScore. It was disappointing at the time for an MCU film, but certainly better than Joker 2 getting a D, becoming the worst-rated movie based on a comic book in CinemaScore history. That means Joker 2 did worse than even Madame Web, which had a C+ CinemaScore earlier this year.

While there will be plenty of headlines about why Joker 2 flopped at the box office, it certainly won’t get the same level of attention as The Marvels. The Marvels being the first box office flop in the MCU was used by many as justification for the false claim that “go woke, go broke”, which ignores the obvious $1 billion Captain Marvel made. The Marvels was labeled as a sign that the MCU was in danger and only a male-led film like Deadpool & Wolverine could “save” the franchise. Meanwhile, there has been concern among fans about whether characters like Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, and Ms. Marvel will return. The same does not apply to Joker 2, which will not lead to a discussion on “the Death of DC,” as Superman is right around the corner or if there is Joker fatigue or Batman fatigue. It will be treated as an isolated incident.

Even more disappointing, director Todd Phillips will likely not face the same scrutiny or backlash as female directors. Beyond Fest made a rather mocked post on X saying it was “punk rock” of Todd Phillips to make a movie like Joker 2, regardless of quality. This same level of artistic admiration is not shared with The Marvels Nia DaCosta, Wonder Woman 1984‘s Patty Jenkins, Punisher: War Zone‘s Lexi Alexander, or Eternals‘ Chloé Zhao, even though she won the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture the year prior for Nomadland. It will be telling if Phillips is given another film soon after Joker 2, while Chloé Zhao, Patty Jenkins, and Birds of Prey‘s Cathy Yan have not had a new movie since their superhero entries.

Female-Led Superhero Projects Are Met With Open Hostility

Superhero projects with female leads, be they movies or television series, are met with much greater hesitation and hostility by some in the fan community than ones led by men. Of the three Disney+ MCU series released in 2022, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. The latter two were met with review bombing and harassment with the tired “who asked for this” while they eagerly anticipated Moon Knight, with the irony being it was the most disappointing of the three.

In 2024, Marvel Studios released anti-hero/villain-based projects like Echo and Agatha All Along on Disney+ and Deadpool & Wolverine in theaters. Deadpool & Wolverine was a box office smash hit and embraced by fans, but Echo and Agatha All Along were met with more open hostility. While Echo and Agatha All Along also got the “who asked for this spin-off,” the same was not given to The Penguin, a spin-off of The Batman which itself was focused on a less popular Batman villain than, say, Joker, Riddler, or Catwoman. This isn’t to say that Echo or Agatha All Along is better than The Penguin, but that one series was given more of the benefit of the doubt. Even still, despite Agatha All Along performing very well on Disney+, it is not given the same level of attention.

Projects like Captain Marvel, Eternals, and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law all faced massive amounts of backlash and review bombing rooted in misogyny that projects like Thor: Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange did not face. For every box office failure like The Marvels or Madame Web, there is also something like 2019’s Hellboy, 2024’s The Crow, The Flash, Green Lantern, Morbius, Dark Phoenix, and now Joker 2. Yet the two former films will carry more blame for the genre than the rest, and it all concerns who is in the lead role.

Not only are women-led films or movies by female directors not given the same level of good-faith criticism as ones made by men, but they are also not given the freedom just to be mediocre. They have to be either excellent or they are judged much harsher. With The Marvels, the entire genre was at stake, but judging by some people, Joker 2 is a misfire and seemingly harmless one. Joker 2 was allowed to be released and flop, but Batgirl was considered a risk to the DC brand. 2024 will be rounded out by Kraven the Hunter, and nobody will care. Joker: Folie à Deux is in theaters now.