Slasher ‘Terrifier 3’ Tops The Weekend’s Box Office As ‘Joker’ Declines

This weekend’s box office takings show how the success of a movie can hinge on how many people put their money into going to see it.

The nationwide box office takings for this weekend shows that the low-budget gory slasher, ‘Terrifier 3’ was the people’s surprise choice with box office takings of  $18.3 million, exceeding the combined total of ‘Joker: Folie à Deux,’ ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,’ and Pharell Wiliams’ Lego man in “Piece by Piece.”

The Weekend’s Box Office Earnings

Joker appears to be heading for other superhero box office flops like “The Marvels,” “The Flash” and “Shazam Fury of the Gods” but those three all managed better second weekends.

In light of the  2019 “Joker” which was a massive success, grossing over $1 billion worldwide against a $60 million budget, this year’s “Joker,” also from Phillips and Phoenix, cost around $200 million to make but could be doomed to box-office disaster with $165.3 million in ticket sales globally so far.

Warner Bros.’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has $7.1 million in its six weekends at the box office but has struggled to get going.

Similarly, The Pharrell Williams “Piece by Piece,” a documentary-biopic hybrid animated in Lego form, opened with a disappointing $3.8 million from 1,865 theaters which had an “A”- the weekend’s best CinemaScore. Budgeted at $16 million, the film is still expected to end up the year’s highest-grossing documentary.

The acclaimed Universal Pictures and DreamWorks animated movie, “The Wild Robot” seems to have gained from the Joker losses. In its third weekend, the movie made $13.4 million at the box office and stands at almost $232 million so far globally after strong reviews.

‘Terrifier 3’ Makes Surprise Showing At Top Of The Box Office

But it was an ax-wielding clown that upset the box office as much as the audience and “Terrifier 3” may still outperform expectations possible due to the disaster of “Joker: Folie à Deux.” The low-budget slasher from the small distributor Cineverse, earned $18.3 million at the box office this weekend according to estimates.

A sequel to 2022’s “Terrifier 2” which brought in $15 million worldwide in ticket sales, the murderous Art the Clown played by David Howard Thornton returns and is let loose under the guise of Santa at a Christmas party.

Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore said the weekend was an outlier for the box office. He said, “To have a movie like this come along just shows you that the audience is the ultimate arbiter of what wins at the box office.”