“Terrifier 3” grosses $18.3 million in theaters, while “Joker 2” suffers a record drop at the box office

There are two clowns at stake at this weekend's box office, as Cineverse/Bloody Disgusting's “Terrifier 3” has become a must-see film for horror fans with an opening weekend of $18.3 million from 2,514 theaters, while Warner Bros.' “Joker.” : Folie a Deux” suffered one of the worst drops ever for a major release in its second weekend.

Todd Phillips' $190 million sequel to “Joker,” the first R-rated film to gross $1 billion worldwide, is down 81% from $37.8 million in its opening weekend to just $7 million US dollar fell. According to data from Box Office Mojo and exhibitor sources, this will be the worst second-weekend percentage decline of any major release with an opening weekend of $30 million or more when actual numbers are announced on Monday.

“Terrifier 3,” a film with combined production and marketing expenses of just $2.5 million, completely eclipsed “Terrifier 2’s” domestic total of $10.6 million. Even though its second weekend numbers drop sharply because there is no significant group of interested moviegoers beyond hardcore fans, Damien Leone's slasher film still enjoys a huge return on investment, having more opening weekends than this year's Blumhouse films. films “Speak No Evil” and “Night Swim”.

In non-clown news, Universal/DreamWorks' The Wild Robot continues to perform spectacularly on the back of its massive success, falling just 29% to $13.5 million in its third weekend. The film is also helped by the fact that a significant number of children are out of school on Monday for Columbus/Indigenous Peoples Day, increasing matinee turnout.

With an estimated total of $83.7 million domestically and $148.4 million worldwide for The Wild Robot, DreamWorks has greenlit a sequel to the film.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” continues to be a reprieve for Warner Bros. after the failure of “Joker 2,” grossing $7.1 million in its sixth weekend while remaining a Halloween offering. Although it's primarily a U.S. hit, grossing just $137.5 million overseas and $415 million worldwide, the sequel is on the cusp of grossing $275 million domestically. “Dune: Part Two” to pass as Warner’s highest-grossing film in the U.S. and Canada this year.

Rounding out the top five is Focus Features' “Piece By Piece,” an animated Lego documentary about Grammy winner Pharrell Williams, which opened to $3.8 million in 1,851 theaters. The newcomer just beat Paramount's “Transformers One,” which grossed $3.6 million in its fourth weekend, for a disappointing $52.8 million domestically.

Completing the rest of the top 10 is a plethora of big releases and specials, with Sony/Columbia's “Saturday Night” coming in with a muted $3.5 million opening weekend from 2,309 theaters following a platform release in Los Angeles and New York last year is in seventh place this weekend.

Jason Reitman's film, based on the very first broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” in 1975, was well received with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 80% among critics and 90% among viewers, but faces an extremely steep climb to make a box office profit even compared to its modest production budget of $30 million.

Coming in at number eight is Toho's “My Hero Academia: You're Next,” the fourth film in the hit anime series, which grossed $3 million in 1,845 theaters. It beats a seasonal re-release of Tim Burton's “The Nightmare Before Christmas” from Disney, which grossed $2.3 million at 1,700 locations this weekend.

Finally, there's Briarcliff Entertainment's “The Apprentice,” a film starring Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong as his mentor Roy Cohn. The film received a lot of attention in the professional world after its premiere in Cannes, as major Hollywood distributors were hesitant to pick it up in the middle of Trump's campaign to return to the White House, but it grossed only $1.5 million in 1,740 theaters.

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