Lol, they spent a sum equal to nearly the entire budget of the first film on the salaries of the two leads and the director.
Hot take, the first movie is overrated incel trash masquerading as high art in film making. It should never have done as well as it did and this movie is showing that.
That’s nothing to say about some of the technical aspects of the first film. Was the acting well done, some of it was great yes. Was the cinematography good, yes in many cases it was. But isn’t a good movie? No, a good movie is more than the sum of its parts.
The fact that it had easter eggs immortalizing real life serial killers should have been a huge red flag to people.
I dunno, there were plenty of people, presumably not all of them incels, who nominated it for a “best film” award: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accolades_received_by_Joker_(2019_film)
Gone With the Wind is Lost Causer propaganda trash. It won an Oscar.