Things have gone from bad to worse for Joker: Folie a Deux, as the movie has followed up its disappointing opening weekend with what is set to be a record second-week drop of 82%. As low-budget slasher Terrifier 3 easily wins the weekend, the movie that should still be riding high has completely collapsed in the wake of its thrashing from critics, audiences and just about everyone else.
Having opened with a terrible $37.8 million domestic weekend, which was slightly lower than just the opening Friday gross of Joker in 2019, the Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga musical sequel has been breaking almost every unwanted record for a comic book movie. Despite high expectations, you would struggle to find two people in the same room who have been completely satisfied by the film, and those stats have pushed it to reach a new low for DC movies with its catastrophic second weekend drop.
According to the latest figures via Deadline, Joker: Folie a Deux will end the weekend on $7 million or less. After already opening much lower than expected, the 82% drop is worse than that suffered by any other DC movie, including last year’s The Flash, which seemed to be bad enough with a 73% second-weekend collapse. While the domestic gross of the film will not be as low as Wonder Woman 1984’s dismal $5.4 million – which could possibly be forgiven a little thanks to its dual release on home streaming during the Covid pandemic – there is really nothing positive coming out of the very unexpected demise of a franchise that started out with a $1 billion success story in 2019.
Joker’s Box Office Collapse is Art the Clown’s Gain
The Clown Prince of Gotham has been slain at the box office by one of the most unlikely success stories of the last several decades. Terrifier 3 may be one of the most controversial and restricted releases in recent memory, but the film is still about to post in excess of $17 million across the weekend. This is nothing to be sniffed at for a movie that comes with a $5 million budget and has been ripping up every cinematic rule book ever written.
Word of mouth plays a huge part in the making and breaking of box office winners and losers, and that has been very much proven by this weekend’s upset. While the Joker sequel has been picking up an increasing amount of bad press, Terrifer 3 is very much just getting more and more praise. Critics may have turned a little more negative in the last few days, but Damien Leone’s gore-laden masterpiece has produced an almost perfect 94% approval rating from audiences, along with a very impressive B CinemaScore grading – something that doesn’t happen that often for horror movies.
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Art the Clown Actor Says One Terrifier 3 Scene Disturbed Him More Than Any Other
David Howard Thornton spoke to MovieWeb amid the release of the latest Terrifier installment, which has received rave reviews from audiences.
All in all, there is a cautionary tale to be learned by big studios from the events of the last week, but whether they are likely to learn from it is another matter. For now, though, it is clear that only one clown has come out of this with a smile on his face, and it is the one who is wearing a bloodstained Santa suit and coming to make you feel queasy and dirty – in the best possible way, of course.