Paul Schrader went to the cinema to watch “Joker: Folie à Deux” and only lasted about twenty minutes before deciding he couldn’t hold on any longer. The sequel to “Joker,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, flopped at the box office amid negative reviews and is in danger of losing between $150 million and $200 million over its run.

“I saw about 10 to 15 minutes of it,” Schrader said while speaking with Jeremy O. Harris for Interview magazine. “I left, bought something, came back and saw another 10 minutes. That was enough.”

Schrader’s esteemed career includes writing the scripts for films like “Taxi Driver,” which served as the main inspiration for the first “Joker” film in 2019. He went on to call the sequel “a really bad musical.”

“I don’t like either of those people,” he added of Gaga and Phoenix. “I don’t like them as actors. I don’t like them as characters. I don’t like it all. I mean, those are people who, if they came to your house, would sneak out the back door.

While expectations were high for “Joker: Folie à Deux” following the success of the 2019 film, which earned $1 billion at the worldwide box office and earned Phoenix the Oscar for Best Actor, the sequel quickly received negative reviews after its world premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It subsequently opened to a dismal $37 million at the domestic box office. Variety reports that the sequel will likely end its theatrical run with around $210 million worldwide, while the first “Joker” film grossed $248.4 million worldwide after three days of release.

In his review of the sequel, Variety Owen Gleiberman wrote: “The concept is daring, but the execution less so in a film that takes a step back from the danger of ‘Joker.’ In any case, the casting of Lady Gaga sounded promising, because she is a great actor, and (among other things) she was put on earth to make musicals. But Gaga, who has a wonderfully casual presence in ‘Folie à Deux’, is drastically underused.”

“Joker: Folie à Deux” continues to play in theaters nationwide.