Box-Office: “Terrifier 3” Slays “Joker” Sequel

CineVerse
With Sunday’s estimates in, the numbers are looking great for ultra-gory, microbudget independent horror film “Terrifier 3” but not so good for the big budget studio sequel “Joker: Folie a Deux”.

“Terrifier 3” easily took the top spot in North America, collecting a stellar $18.3 million in its opening weekend. Made for just a $2 million budget and scoring good reviews from critics along with a solid B CinemaScore, this is a huge win for filmmaker Damien Leone and the filmmaking team like Bloody Disgusting legend Brad Miska who executive produced.

The film pushed “Joker: Folie á Deux” into third place with that project taking just $7.1 million in its second weekend – an astonishing 82% decline from an already-disastrous $37.6 million debut.

That’s one the biggest-second weekend drops ever for a major studio film – beating last year’s crop of duds like “The Marvels” (78%), “The Flash” (73%) and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (70%). The film could end up in fourth place behind the sixth weekend of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” once the last numbers are in.

“Joker: Folie á Deux” is tanking overseas as well, just not quite as hard. The film pulled in $22.6 million in its second weekend of release, a 70% drop to result in a worldwide haul of $165.3 million so far – that’s a long way from the $450 million minimum the film reportedly requires to break even.

What is faring better is Dreamworks’ “The Wild Robot” which snagged $24.1 million overseas in 55 territories so far with plenty of key markets yet to open as the global release is being staggered.

It stands at $148 million globally to date with many weeks of life left to it, and in the U.S. its sitting in second place with $13.45 million in its third weekend and $84 million domestic total.

Domestically some smaller films had rough starts. The Pharrell Williams LEGo biopic “Piece By Piece” came under expectations with just $3.8 million, “Saturday Night” struggled to break through as it went wide and pulled in just $3.4 million in seventh place, and the Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice” didn’t even crack the Top Ten – taking just $1.58 million.