‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ sneak previews snag $7 million, around half of original’s
Warner Bros. Pictures
Joker: Folie à Deuxis expected to top the box office this weekend, but comparisons to the original, which grossed more than $1 billion, are already haunting the sequel.
The movie, which stars Joaquin Phoenix reprising his Oscar-winning title role, has him teaming up with Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. It took in $7 million from Thursday night sneak preview showings, according to Variety.
While those are respectable numbers, the 2019 original had $13 million in the bank by Friday morning, on its way to a $96.2 million opening weekend.
Also weighing on the sequel’s box office future are reviews much weaker than its predecessor and a budget that was way higher — $200 million versus $65 million for the first one, according to the trade.
Harvey Weinstein has been diagnosed with a form of bone marrow cancer, sources told ABC News.
Weinstein has been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, sources said, adding that the former Hollywood producer is receiving treatment while jailed.
Weinstein’s authorized legal health care representative in New York, Craig Rothfeld, declined to comment, saying, “Out of respect for Mr. Weinstein’s privacy, we will offer no further comment.”
According to the American Cancer Society, chronic myeloid leukemia is a type of cancer that starts in the blood-forming cells of the bone marrow and invades the blood. The organization says approximately 15% of leukemias in adults is CML.
Weinstein is currently in prison on Rikers Island in New York, where he has experienced a slew of health issues amid his ongoing sexual assault trials.
In September, Weinstein was rushed to Bellevue Hospital for emergency heart surgery after experiencing chest pains, his representatives told ABC News at the time.
In July, Weinstein’s representatives said he was hospitalized for a “myriad of health conditions,” including COVID-19 and double pneumonia.
Weinstein was also suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs, and various other conditions, he representatives said at the time.
The former movie mogul is being prosecuted again for sex crimes after his New York conviction was overturned on appeal.
On Sept. 19, while he was recovering from his procedure, Weinstein pleaded not guilty to criminal sex act in the first degree, based on the allegations of a woman who said he sexually assaulted her on one occasion in 2006 at a Manhattan hotel.
The latest indictment came months after the New York Court of Appeals overturned his 2020 sex crimes conviction. He had been found guilty of criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Weinstein has denied all claims of sexual misconduct, saying his encounters were consensual.
Sarah Paulson stars in the new thriller Hold Your Breath, which is now streaming on Hulu. Set in Oklahoma in 1933, when biblical dust storms ravaged the Midwest, the creepy film has Paulson playing a mother grieving the loss of one of her daughters, while trying to keep her two surviving daughters safe amid the apocalyptic setting.
“I love the idea of the backdrop being this part of our country’s history, this hideous storm,” Paulson tells ABC Audio.
With people desperate to keep the dust out of their lungs, they resorted to wearing masks, which draws an eerie parallel to the COVID-19 era, she agreed.
“Our writer, Karrie Crouse, had written the screenplay prior to the pandemic,” Paulson says. “It’s funny how history can repeat itself. And although this was not an airborne illness that was plaguing that part of our country during that time period, it certainly was a harrowing thing.”
As if the dust storms aren’t enough to worry about, there are rumors of a murderous drifter afoot, and those fears come to a head when a mysterious man shows up, played by The Bear‘s Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
“I would watch him read the phone book. I’d watch him walk across the street. I’d watch him do just about anything,” Paulson enthused about the actor.
“And when the filmmakers said, you know, ‘What about Ebon?’ I … just jumped out of my chair. I was like, ‘Yes, yes, yes, please. Yes!'”
She added, “And that was before I got to be on The Bear. So I got to have this experience with him first. It was so, so special.”
On Monday, Marvel Studios dropped an action-packed teaser to its May 2025 team-up Thunderbolts*.
As reported, the movie is an unlikely collab of former Marvel Cinematic Universe bad guys: Florence Pugh‘s Yelena and her adopted dad, Alexei aka Red Guardian (David Harbour); Sebastian Stan‘s Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier; Hannah John-Kamen‘s Ava Starr/Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp;Olga Kurylenko‘sAntonia Dreykov/Taskmaster from Black Widow; and Wyatt Russell‘s John Walker/U.S. Agent from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
The trailer begins with Yelena knocking on Alexei’s door; she says she’s been looking for purpose, and “throwing herself into work” — in her case, being a master assassin — wasn’t cutting it.
It’s a malaise apparently felt by Bucky, who seems to be working as a security minder in Washington, D.C., as well as Walker, who is shown ignoring a baby in a crib and instead reading an article about his fall from grace as the one-time replacement to Steve Rogers’ Cap.
Yelena is then seen fighting her way into a facility and finds that each of the characters were led there, as well — the gang fights each other, until a guy in a pair of medical scrubs tumbles out of a crate. With every weapon trained on him, the guy identifies himself as “Bob.”
And then the windows of the room slam shut, and they’re trapped.
“Someone wants us gone,” Yelena says.
Returning Marvel player Julia Louis-Dreyfus reappearsas theshadowy Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, who seemingly brought the “adorable” gang together.
“We’re brought up to believe there are good guys and there are bad guys,” she says in voice-over. “But eventually you come to realize there are bad guys, and there are worse guys — and nothing else.”
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
