What was the budget of the movie ‘Joker 2′, how much did Joaquin Phoenix earn?

Todd Phillips’ much anticipated movie Joker: Folie à Deux goes on general release this weekend with forecasts predicting it to perform well at the box office despite some less than sympathetic reviews.

Joker 2 premiered on 4 September at the 81st Venice International Film Festival with previews lined up to start Thursday at 3 p.m. ET before its theatrical released on Friday. (Check out what other films are out this October).

Lady Gaga brings out the Joker’s love of Hollywood musicals

Joaquin Phoenix returns to play Arthur Fleck / the Joker - the scheming, unscrupulous supervillain with an evil grin and a troubled background. We get to find out what makes the Joker tick and the personal traumas he suffered in childhood which go some way to explaining his dark side. While in therapy he meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga) who soon becomes his partner in crime, encouraging him to bring out the all signing, all dancing, performer side to his personality.

The director explained: “As much as we’re saying, ‘It’s very different from the first movie, it is the direct sequel in that it picks up Arthur, two, three years later from the events of the first movie. It answers a lot of people’s questions I think that they had on the first film, which was, ‘Did that really happen? Was this all in his head?’ And we find Arthur two or three years later having to face the music for the crimes that he committed - and wrestle with reality versus fantasy in his own way”.

Early forecasts expect the movie to take in between $55 million-$60 million at the box office during its opening week and recoup the lion’s share of the movie’s production costs. From start to finish, Joker: Folie à Deux cost just under $200 million to make - almost three times the budget for Phillips’ first incarnation of the Joker, which ended up grossing $1.079 billion.

How much did Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga earn from Joker: Folie à Deux?

As for Phoenix, he is believed to have taken a hefty chunk of the budget. Some reports have suggested his fee for playing Arthur Fleck / the Joker was around $20 million - several times the $4.5 million basic salary he earned from the first film (it’s it believed the actor also negotiated an undisclosed percentage of profits).

With Joker 2 he will also secure a small share of backend points which will bring another small windfall if the film does well globally. Even so, it’s still only a fraction of the $30 million fee which Brad Pitt pocketed his lead role in Top Gun: Maverick.

Phoenix earned $5 million for The Village (2004), $3.5 million for playing Johnny Cash in Walk the Line and just a paltry $375,000 for Quills (2000). According to Celebrity Net Worth, the 49-year-old’s fortune currently stands at around $80 million.

Lady Gaga, the villain’s therapist/love interest is reported by Variety to have earned $10-12 million for her role in the movie, her third starring role following appearances in A Star Is Born (2018) and House of Gucci (2021) which earned her Critics Choice, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA, and Golden Globe nominations.