Box Office: ‘Terrifier 3’ is No. 1 Clown as ‘Joker 2’ Suffers Record Fall and ‘Apprentice’ Gets Fired
Terrifier 3 isn’t clowning around. The slasher pic is easily winning a weekend of curiosity and carnage at the domestic box office, where Joker: Folie à Deux is suffering the worst decline in history for a comic book movie and one of the biggest among any film.
Cineverse and Icon Events’ Terrifier threequel opened ahead of expectations for Chris McGurk’s new venture with an estimated $18.9 million from 2,514 theaters, according to final numbers. That’s up from Sunday’s estimate of $18.3 million, a tidy sum for an unrated film that cost $2 million to produce.
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The next closest film is The Wild Robot, which continued to shine for DreamWorks Animation and Universal. Now in its third weekend, the family pic eared another $14 million from 3,854 cinemas — up from Sunday’s estimated $13.4 million — for a domestic cume of $84.3 million. It also pulled in another $24 million overseas to beat Joker and push its global haul to $149.5 million.
Todd Phillips’ Joker sequel fell off a cliff in its second weekend with $7 million from 4,102 theaters, a historic decline of 81 percent, and only good enough for a fourth-place finish. Until now, The Marvels held the record among comic book movies for the worst second-weekend decline at 78 percent. Joker 2‘s fall is also one of the worst drops in history for a film opening in more than 2,000 locations.
Rival studios on Sunday showed Joker 2 coming in closer to between $6.7 million and $6.8 million, meaning it was beaten by fellow Warners holdover Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which continues to flex its theatrical muscles even though it’s now available at home on premium VOD. The rival studios were right — the Tim Burton-directed sequel came in third with $7.3 million from 2,408 locations as it crosses the $275 million mark domestically in its sixth weekend.
Overseas, Folie à Deux also fell off steeply, earning $21.9 million from 77 markets for a foreign total of $113.7 million and $165 globally.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, conversely, is a huge win for the studio, and has zoomed past the $400 million mark globally to finish Sunday with more than $420.3 million in ticket sales. Its foreign tally is $144.7 million.
While Terrifier 3 did decent business, a slew of other new nationwide openers — including high-profile awards contenders — struggled to find an audience.
Briarcliff’s Donald Trump movie The Apprentice — which Trump tried to block from ever appearing in cinemas — opened to an estimated $1.6 million range from 1,740 locations, just enough to crack the top 10. Prerelease tracking showed the film opening in the $3 million range.
The Apprentice, which made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and later played at the Telluride Film Festival, is doing a majority of its business in liberal enclaves in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. It boasts decent reviews, although audiences gave it a B- CinemaScore.
Briarcliff, which acquired U.S. rights to the film at the 11th hour, had only five weeks to sell The Apprentice, which launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for marketing costs. Briarcliff chief Tom Ortenberg, who was behind best picture winner Spotlight, believes The Apprentice will grow steadily and that the opening gross doesn’t seal the film’s fate.
Before the pandemic, indie distributors generally opened their awards contenders in New York and Los Angeles in order to build word of mouth, versus launching nationwide and risk losing theaters quickly if a film didn’t bring in traffic. Platform releases have since become less common.
Like Briarcliff, Focus Features also decided on a nationwide release for its critically acclaimed Oscar hopeful Piece by Piece, an animated biographical drama about Pharrell Williams. The movie, earning a glowing A CinemaScore, is debuting this weekend in 1,865 theaters and is estimating a decent fourth-place finish with an estimated $3.6 million, the best of the awards bunch.
Piece by Piece, made in tandem with Lego, came in ahead of Jason Reitman’s awards contender Saturday Night, a love letter to Lorne Michaels’ Saturday Night Live. The film also played at Telluride, which is considered ground zero for launching an Oscar campaign.
From Sony, Saturday Night expanded wide after playing its first two weekends in select cities such as L.A. and New York. The generally well-reviewed film is likely to finish in seventh place with a subdued $3.4 million from 2,309 cinemas after earning a B+ CinemaScore. The movie’s total domestic take is $4.2 million.
Similar to Briarcliff, Sony believes Saturday Night will find its stride.
One indie distributor that did embrace a platform release for one of its awards contenders was A24, and it paid off. Filmmaker John Crowley’s well-reviewed We Live in Time, starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, opened in five locations for a sturdy per-theater average of $45,182, the best of the weekend.
After five consecutive weekends of growth, box office revenue this weekend is on course to be down 45 percent or more from the same frame last year. A major factor is the failure of Joker: Folie à Deux, but the overall soft marketplace isn’t helping. Another reason: last year was the weekend that Taylor Swift’s Eras doc premiered.
On a happier note, Disney’s annual Halloween rerelease of Tim Burton’s cult classic The Nightmare Before Christmas cracked the top 10 with $2.3 million from 2,204 theaters to come in ahead of The Apprentice. And Disney and Marvel’s blockbuster superhero pic Deadpool & Wolverine passed up Star Wars: The Last Jedi at the global box office over the weekend to become the 20th top-grossing film of all time with $1.335 billion in ticket sales, not adjusted for inflation. And even though it’s now available in the home via premium VOD, it’s still in U.S. theaters and will soon pass up Barbie domestically to become the 12th top-grossing movie of all time domestically.
Oct. 13, 7:50 a.m.: Updated with revised estimates.
Oct. 13, 8:40 a.m.: Updated with Warner Bros. estimates.
Oct. 13, 10:30 a.m.: Updated with additional grosses.
Oct. 14, 11:30 a.m.: Updated with final grosses for Terrifer 3, Joker sequel, Beetlejuice sequel and The Wild Robot.
This story was originally published Oct. 12 at 9:41 a.m.
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