NEW YORK — Options for the movie marquee this weekend included Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker, a movie about Donald Trump, an origin story from “Saturday Night Live” and even Pharrell Williams as Lego. . In the end, everyone is defeated by an axe-wielding clown.
“Terrifier 3,” a bloody, low-budget slasher The film from small distributor Cineverse topped the weekend box office with $18.3 million, according to Sunday estimates.
The film, the sequel to 2022’s “Terrifier 2” ($15 million in worldwide ticket sales), brings back the murderous Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) and lets him loose in the guise of Santa at a Christmas party.
That “Terrifier 3” was able to outperform expectations and surpass both major studios and awards contenders was only possible due to the disaster of “Joker: Folie à Deux.”
after Todd Phillips’ ‘Joker’ sequelStarring Phoenix and Lady Gaga, the film debuted last weekend to a middling low (and received a “D” CinemaScore from audiences), with the Warner Bros. release dropping a massive 81% in its second weekend, grossing just $7.1 million.
This kind of degradation is rare for a superhero film. Disappointments like “The Marvels,” “The Flash” and “Shazam’s Fury of the Gods” managed better in the second weekend.
Such widespread rejection by audiences and critics is unusual, especially for a big hit like 2019’s “Joker.” That film, from Phillips and Phoenix, grossed over $1 billion worldwide against a $60 million budget.
The sequel was more expensive, costing approximately $200 million to make. That means “Joker: Folie à Deux” is definitely headed for box-office disaster. Globally, it has collected $165.3 million from ticket sales.
“If there ever was a weekend, this would be more than that,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at comScore. “If you had asked someone a month ago or even a week ago: Would ‘Terrifier 3’ be the number one movie among all these major-Studio movies and awards contenders? The coming of a film like this shows you that the audience is the final judge of what wins at the box office.
The “Joker” slide allowed the acclaimed Universal Pictures and DreamWorks animated film “The Wild Robot” to take second place with $13.4 million in its third weekend.
Chris Sanders’ adaptation of Peter Brown’s book received strong reviews, leading the film, with Lupita Nyong’o voicing the robot protagonist, to a gross of $83.7 million domestically and $148 million worldwide.
Young Donald Trump’s film “The Apprentice” Distributed by Briarcliff Entertainment in 1,740 theaters, the film opened in distant 10th place, managing a modest $1.6 million in ticket sales.
Although expectations were not very high, viewers showed little enthusiasm for the Republican candidate’s election year origin story.
Had the headlines translated to ticket sales, Ali Abbasi’s film might have done better. “The Apprentice,” starring Sebastian Stan playing Trump under the tutelage of Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), has been making news since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, until its last-minute release just weeks before the election. The Trump campaign has called the film “election interference by the Hollywood elite.”
Abbasi’s film, based on the 1970s and 1980s, tested film audiences’ appetite for a political film in an election year. Major studios and specialty labels acquired it partly because of questions about whether a film about Trump would disenchant both liberal and conservative film lovers alike.
The continued awards conversation will depend on “The Apprentice” for Strong and Stan to make a significant mark in theaters before voters head to the polls.
Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night” failed to ignite its nationwide expansion. The film, starring Gabrielle LaBelle and an ensemble cast led by Lorne Michaels, grossed $3.4 million from 2,288 locations.
The Sony Pictures release is all about the backstage drama as the NBC sketch comedy show, set to first air in 1975, will need to make a big impact on audiences during awards season.
The Pharrell Williams documentary-biopic hybrid “Piece by Piece,” an animated Pharrell Williams documentary in Lego form, was also expected to be a better hit with moviegoers.
The acclaimed Focus Features release, directed by veteran documentarian Morgan Neville (“20 Feet from Stardom,” “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”), opened with $3.8 million from 1,865 theaters.
But the beginning of “Piece by Piece”, while low for a Lego animated film, was too high for a documentary. “Piece by Piece”, which had the best CinemaScore over the weekend, an “A” from the audience, may do well in the coming weeks.
The film, which had a modest budget of $16 million, is also likely to become the highest-grossing film of the year – if it can be called “piece by piece”.
The weepy drama “We Live in Time,” starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, had one of the year’s best per-theater averages in its five-screen debut.
The A24 release, which will expand nationwide next weekend, debuted with $255,911 and a $51,000 per-screen average.
Outside of the success of Warner Bros.’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (which grossed $7.1 million in six weekends of release despite only recently launching on video-on-demand), the Hollywood decadent has struggled to keep up.
Low-budget horror movies like “Terrifier 3” remain a good bet in theaters, but this autumn has mostly featured bombs like “Joker: Folie a Deux” and “Megalopolis.”
This time last year, Taylor Swift was blowing up the box office with “The Eras Tour.” There was a 45% decline this weekend compared to the same period last year, according to comScore.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “Terrifier 3,” $18.3 million.
2. “The Wild Robot,” $13.5 million.
3. “Joker: Folie à Deux,” $7.1 million.
4. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” $7.1 million.
5. “Pieces and Pieces,” $3.8 million.
6. “Transformers One,” $3.7 million.
7. “Saturday Night,” $3.4 million.
8. “My Hero Academia: You’re Next,” $3 million.
9. “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” $2.3 million.
10. “The Apprentice,” $1.6 million.