This weekend’s box office is a tale of two clowns, as Cineverse/Bloody Disgusting’s “Terrifier 3” has become a can’t-miss film for horror fans with a $18.3 million opening weekend from 2,514 theaters while Warner Bros.’ “Joker: Folie a Deux” has suffered one of the worst second weekend drops ever seen for a wide release.
Todd Phillips’ $190 million sequel to “Joker,” the first R-rated film to gross $1 billion worldwide, has fallen 81% from its $37.8 million opening weekend to just $7 million. According to data from Box Office Mojo and exhibitor sources, that will be the worst second weekend percentage drop for any wide release with an opening weekend of $30 million or more if it stands after Monday actuals are reported.
“Terrifier 3,” meanwhile, a film with a combined production and marketing spend of just $2.5 million, has completely eclipsed the $10.6 million domestic total of “Terrifier 2.” Even if it sees its second weekend numbers fall off a cliff due to not having a significant group of interested moviegoers beyond hardcore fans, Damien Leone’s slasher film is still enjoying a massive return on investment, having earned higher opening weekends than this year’s Blumhouse films “Speak No Evil” and “Night Swim.”
In non-clown news, Universal/DreamWorks’ “The Wild Robot” continues to leg out spectacularly through its widespread acclaim, dropping just 29% in its third weekend to $13.5 million. The film is also being aided by a significant number of kids being off school on Monday for Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, increasing matinee turnout.
With running estimated totals of $83.7 million domestic and $148.4 million worldwide for “The Wild Robot,” DreamWorks has greenlit a sequel for the film.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” continues to be a respite for Warner Bros. amid the failure of “Joker 2,” grossing $7.1 million in its sixth weekend as it continues to leg out as a Halloween offering. While primarily an American hit with only just $137.5 million grossed overseas and $415 million worldwide, the sequel’s $275 million domestic total puts it on the threshold of passing “Dune: Part Two” as Warner’s highest grossing film this year in the U.S. and Canada.
Completing the top 5 is Focus Features’ “Piece By Piece,” a Lego animated documentary about Grammy-winning musician Pharrell Williams opening to $3.8 million from 1,851 theaters. The newcomer just edged out Paramount’s “Transformers One,” which earned $3.6 million in its fourth weekend for a disappointing $52.8 million domestic total.
A grab bag of wide releases and specialty offerings fill out the rest of the top 10, with Sony/Columbia’s “Saturday Night” in seventh with a muted $3.5 million opening weekend from 2,309 theaters after a platform release in Los Angeles and New York last weekend.
Based around the first ever broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” in 1975, the Jason Reitman film has been well received with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 80% critics and 90% audience, but faces an extremely uphill climb to turn a theatrical profit even against its modest $30 million reported production budget.
In eighth is Toho’s “My Hero Academia: You’re Next,” the fourth film from the hit anime series which earned $3 million from 1,845 theaters. It is beating out a seasonal re-release of Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” from Disney, which made $2.3 million from 1,700 locations this weekend.
Finally, there’s Briarcliff Entertainment’s “The Apprentice,” a film starring Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong as his mentor, Roy Cohn. The film got much publicity in the trades after its Cannes premiere for the reluctance of major Hollywood distributors to pick up the film in the midst of Trump’s campaign to return to the White House, but only grossed $1.5 million from 1,740 theaters.
