'Terrifier 3' Tops Box Office, 'Joker 2' Plummets with Record Drop, 'Apprentice' Bombs

Terrifier 3 is not joking around. The slasher thriller is comfortably winning a weekend of curiosity and carnage at the domestic box office, while Joker: Folie à Deux is seeing the worst drop in history for a comic book film and one of the largest of any movie.

David Howard Thornton as Art the Clown in 'Terrifier 3.'

Cineverse /Courtesy Everett Collection

According to official data, Cineverse and Icon Events' Terrifier threequel grossed an estimated $18.9 million from 2,514 screens, exceeding expectations for Chris McGurk's new business. That's up from Sunday's projection of $18.3 million, a good haul for an unrated picture that cost $2 million to make.

The next closest film is The Wild Robot, which has continued to shine for DreamWorks Animation and Universal. Now in its third weekend, the family film earned an additional $14 million from 3,854 theaters, up from Sunday's predicted $13.4 million, for a domestic total of $84.3 million. It also raised an additional $24 million internationally, surpassing Joker and bringing its total earnings to $149.5 million worldwide.

Todd Phillips' Joker sequel plummeted off a cliff in its second weekend, grossing $7 million from 4,102 cinemas, a historic loss of 81 percent and finishing fourth. Until today, The Marvels had the worst second-weekend drop of any comic book film, at 78%. Joker 2's dip is also one of the lowest in history for a picture that opens in over 2,000 theaters.

Rival studios reported on Sunday that Joker 2 earned between $6.7 million and $6.8 million, leaving it trailing fellow Warners holdover Beetlejuice, which continues to flex its theatrical muscles while being available at home on premium VOD. The rival studios were correct: the Tim Burton-directed sequel finished third with $7.3 million from 2,408 theaters, crossing the $275 million barrier domestically in its sixth weekend.

Overseas, Folie à Deux also declined sharply, collecting $21.9 million from 77 markets for a total of $113.7 million and $165 million worldwide.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, on the other hand, has been a great success for the studio, grossing more than $420.3 million worldwide as of Sunday night. The foreign total is $144.7 million.

While Terrifier 3 performed well, a flood of other new national openings, including high-profile award hopefuls, struggled to find an audience.

Briarcliff's Donald Trump film The Apprentice, which Trump fought to prevent from ever being released in theaters, debuted to an estimated $1.6 million from 1,740 locations, just enough to enter the top ten. According to pre-release tracking, the picture will gross around $3 million.

The Apprentice, which had its global premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and later played at the Telluride Film Festival, is doing the most of its business in liberal hotspots like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. It received favorable reviews, but moviegoers awarded it a B- CinemaScore.

Briarcliff, which bought U.S. rights to the picture at the last minute, had only five weeks to sell The Apprentice, so it launched a Kickstarter campaign to cover marketing expenditures. Briarcliff chief Tom Ortenberg, who was behind best-picture winner Spotlight, believes The Apprentice will develop slowly and that the opening weekend does not seal the film's destiny.

Prior to the pandemic, indie distributors typically launched their Oscar contenders in New York and Los Angeles to promote word of mouth, rather than debuting nationwide and risk losing theaters rapidly if a film failed to generate traffic. Platform releases have since become less common.

Like Briarcliff, Focus Features chose a countrywide distribution for its critically praised Oscar contender Piece by Piece, an animated biographical drama about Pharrell Williams. The film, which has received a terrific A CinemaScore, will open this weekend in 1,865 theaters and is expected to finish in fourth place with an estimated $3.6 million, the best of the Oscar contenders.

Piece by Piece, produced in collaboration with Lego, outperformed Jason Reitman's awards candidate Saturday Night, a love tribute to Lorne Michaels' Saturday Night Live. The film also premiered in Telluride, which is known as the starting point for an Oscar campaign.

Saturday Night, from Sony, expanded beyond its first two weekends in select cities such as Los Angeles and New York. Following a B+ CinemaScore, the generally well-reviewed film is expected to finish seventh with a modest $3.4 million from 2,309 theaters. The film's total domestic earnings are $4.2 million.

Similar to Briarcliff, Sony feels Saturday Night will get its stride.

A24 was one independent distributor that embraced a platform release for one of its award contenders, and it paid off. We Live in Time, starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, opened in five theaters for a strong per-theater average of $45,182, the highest of the weekend.

Following five straight weekends of increase, box office revenue this weekend is expected to be down 45 percent or more from the same period last year. A key issue is the failure of Joker: Folie à Deux, but the overall lackluster market isn't helping. Another reason: Taylor Swift's Eras documentary aired last year during the weekend.

On a brighter note, Disney's annual Halloween rerelease of Tim Burton's cult classic The Nightmare Before Christmas broke into the top ten with $2.3 million from 2,204 screens, beating out The Apprentice. And during the weekend, Disney and Marvel's blockbuster superhero flick Deadpool & Wolverine surpassed Star Wars: The Last Jedi at the global box office, generating $1.335 billion in ticket sales, not adjusted for inflation. Even though it is now available in the home via premium VOD, it is still playing in cinemas in the United States and will shortly surpass Barbie to become the 12th highest-grossing film of all time.