‘Joker’ Continued to Break Box Office Record in Second Weekend in Theaters
Joker is not clowning around at the box office. This movie is a significant hit.
In its second weekend of release, Joker broke more box office records. It grossed an estimated $55 million, the highest second weekend ever in the history of October movies according to Box Office Mojo. The movie dropped just 43 percent from its debut weekend in theaters, which is a very strong hold as well, suggesting the film has good word of mouth and could hang around in theaters for a long time. As noted by box office analyst Gitesh Pandya, that’s also the “exact same decline as Wonder Woman, which went on to have a long run.”
The news wasn’t nearly as good for Joker’s competition. The weekend’s big new release, Gemini Man starring Will Smith, flopped with just $20.5 million against a budget of well over $100 million. It came in third place on the box office chart, after Joker and the new animated version of The Addams Family starring the voices of Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron. It grossed $30.2 million over the weekend, slightly beating predictions for the film.
The other big box office news was the arthouse phenomenon Parasite, the new film from Korean director Bong Joon-ho. Following an acclaimed festival run, the film opened in three theaters in New York and Los Angeles, and grossed an average of $125,421 — the best per-screen average of 2019, and the best PSA for any movie since 2016 and La La Land.
As for Joker, the big question now is high it will go. With $192 million in U.S. theaters to date, it’ll hit $200 million in a matter of days. Can it go to $300 million? And even more importantly: At what point does Warner Bros. look at all this money and throw some of it at Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix in an attempt to convince them to make another?
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