The choices on the movie marquee this weekend included Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker, a film about Donald Trump, a Saturday Night Live origin story, and Pharrell Williams as a Lego. In the end, all were trounced by an ax-wielding clown. Terrifier 3, a gory, low-budget slasher from the small distributor Cineverse, topped the weekend box office with $18.3 million, according to estimates Sunday, the AP reports. The film, a sequel to 2022's Terrifier 2 ($15 million worldwide in ticket sales), brings back the murderous Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) and lets him loose, under the guise of Santa, at a Christmas party.
That Terrifier 3 could notably overperform expectations and leapfrog both major studios and awards hopefuls was only possible due to the disaster of Joker: Folie à Deux. After Todd Phillips' Joker sequel, starring Phoenix and Lady Gaga, got off to a much-diminished start last weekend (and a "D" CinemaScore from audiences), the Warner Bros. release fell a staggering 81% in its second weekend, bringing in just $7.1 million. For a superhero film, such a drop has little precedent. The young Donald Trump film The Apprentice, distributed by Briarcliff Entertainment in 1,740 theaters, opened in a distant 10th place, managing a paltry $1.6 million in ticket sales. While expectations weren't much higher, audiences still showed little enthusiasm for an election-year origin story of the Republican presidential nominee.
Below are estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
- Terrifier 3, $18.3 million.
- The Wild Robot, $13.5 million.
- Joker: Folie à Deux, $7.1 million.
- Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, $7.1 million.
- Piece by Piece, $3.8 million.
- Transformers One, $3.7 million.
- Saturday Night, $3.4 million.
- My Hero Academia: You're Next, $3 million.
- Nightmare Before Christmas, $2.3 million.
- The Apprentice, $1.6 million.
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