There was a murder at the box office over the weekend, as Art the Clown killed Arthur Fleck. The Wild Robot was an accessory after the fact as Joker: Folie à Deux‘s brief stint at No. 1 came to an end. The Joker sequel was unseated by Terrifier 3, the indie horror franchise featuring David Howard Thornton as the serial killer known as Art the Clown. This sequel not only outperformed projections with $18.3 million ahead of all other movies this weekend, it earned more than Terrifier 2‘s lifetime gross of $15.7 million.
DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot finished in second place with $13.45 million, bringing its domestic total to $83.7 million. Meanwhile, Joker: Folie à Deux fell 81% from its disappointing $37 million opening to only $7.55 million, which narrowly gave it third place. It’s a catastrophic drop for the film, which now has $51.6 million domestically against a $200 million budget and a large advertising budget as well. This movie is going to lose a lot of money for Warner Bros., the only question is how much.
At No. 4, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice remains the blockbuster of the season with a new $275.6 million total after adding another $7.05 million from Friday to Sunday. That might be some small consolation for Warner Bros. after the Joker 2 debacle. Meanwhile, the Pharrell Williams Lego-biopic Piece by Piece failed to gain much traction as it rounded out the top 5 with only $3.8 million in its opening bow.
Unfortunately, the prognosis is not very good for Transformers: One, which had only $3.65 million in sixth place, and a modest $52.8 million total to date. After its soft opening a few weeks ago, Paramount held out hope that the critically acclaimed prequel might find some traction with audiences. Instead, it’s dropping fairly quickly.
Sony’s Saturday Night Live origin flick, Saturday Night, finally opened wide in its third weekend to $3.4 million in seventh place. That brings its total to $4.1 million. In eighth place, the anime film My Hero Academia: You’re Next did well with $3 million. Disney’s annual rerelease of The Nightmare Before Christmas had $2.3 million in ninth place, bringing its lifetime total to $89.9 million. The Donald Trump biopic, The Apprentice, closed out the top 10 with only $1.58 million. It seems like neither side of the political aisle was all that interested in seeing the film.
Additionally, this week marked the first time since its release in late July that Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine fell out of the top 10, which capped off its $635.2 million domestic run and its $1.333 billion worldwide take, both of which are records for R-rated films. There are only two more comic book-related movies coming in the rest of 2024, Venom: The Last Dance and Kraven the Hunter, but only the former is expected to be a hit.
