Art the Clown and Sienna Shaw nabbed a worthwhile opening for a hardcore R-rated feature, while Arthur Fleck and Lee Quinn earned an unredeemable record with one of the worst all-time 2nd-weekend drops in film history.
One’s loss was one’s gain, and the slasher threequel succeeded in a month predestined for horror breakouts, along with good buzz and word of mouth from moviegoers. With this debut, it has already exploded past its 2022 predecessor’s total numbers ($15.7 million). Technically, it could’ve benefitted further from attaining some IMAX and PLF seats. Still, an insane jump for a franchise that started on the independent scene and leveling up to the big leagues for the third outing has all the ingredients to become the generation’s next Saw/Scream IP. Now, it’ll play alongside Smile 2 next week to dominate the spooky season and has a chance to leg out to $40 million in totals. If it has the audacity to climb past $45 million, it’ll surpass Midnight Cowboy to become the highest-earning X-rated film release. Art the Clown has the capability to slash (give or take) a 55-year-old record if it soars to the moon.
In other gruesome news, Joker: Folie a Deux dropped 81% in its second weekend, the biggest drop ever for a significant franchise release. Yes, even more than the other DC/Marvel fanfare, including Morbius, The Marvels, and Batman v Superman. That makes it the fifth-largest drop ever in a 2k+ screen release. It will level out around $60-65 million domestically, a far cry from its predecessor’s $336 million domestic, and barely scrape to $200-225 million globally (light years from its predecessor’s $1.079 billion). The only achievement of this dream that Joaquin Phoenix had is that no one wanted a sequel; Warner Brothers may need to release Coyote v. Acme after all or pull Batgirl from the archives to save their skin (you could’ve been wrong, Mr. Peter Safran).
Thankfully, The Wild Robot rebounded with $13.4 million (a 29% drop) in its third weekend for a $83.7 million total; it’s probably looking at a $250-260 million worldwide hail once all is said and done. That essentially ties it with The Bad Guys‘ legs in 2022 and may be enough of a catapult to resurrect animation on Dreamworks’ end back to glory one day. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has surpassed $420 million worldwide, while Transformers One has passed $110 million globally (again, still not enough to qualify as a win for Paramount).
Piece by Piece opened to $3.8 million, while The Apprentice bombed with a $1.58 million debut. Saturday Night opened wide with $3.43 million, and Caroline returned to theaters for $2.3 million.
Next weekend sees the release of Smile 2, Anora, Goodrich, The Line, and High Tide.
