The Clown Prince of Crime is no match for this weekend’s box office victor: Art the Clown.
In a clown-versus-clown faceoff, Terrifier 3 has emerged victorious, leaving Joker: Folie à Deux in the dust. Scaring off its competition, the slasher about a demonic clown debuted to an estimated $18.3 at the domestic box office, per Comscore. This is a stellar beginning for the ultra-gory, independently-made film, which was produced on a budget of just $2 million. Abroad, the film picked up $4.8 million bringing its worldwide total to $23.1 million.
The film’s success continues a trend for the franchise, which follows Art the Clown as he brutalizes a small town just in time for the holidays. Terrifier 2 became something of a box office miracle in 2022, grossing $1 million in its opening weekend on an even smaller budget of $250,000.
Writer-director Damian Leone described the sequel’s success to Entertainment Weekly as “overwhelming,” saying, “Every morning I wake up, it’s like Christmas morning. Since it hit theaters, the hype’s been building, so it’s really exciting.”
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Leone added that the first film was over a decade in the making, ever since he first came up with the idea of Art, his surreal horror movie villain.
“I had this idea of a clown terrorizing a woman on a city bus,” said the filmmaker. “She’s all alone, coming home from work or whatever, in the middle of the night, and then this clown gets on, and sits across from her, and starts staring at her and toying with her. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, and maybe even funny, but then it gets progressively more intimidating and aggressive.”
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This weekend’s box office wasn’t all gore and chaos though: Dreamworks’ The Wild Robot is still charming audiences across the country, three weeks into its release. The lighthearted animated feature — which follows a shipwrecked robot who befriends the animals of a forest — raked in an additional $13.4 million towards its domestic total of $83.7 million. Finding even more success abroad, the film earned another $24 million for a worldwide total of $148.4 million.
Featuring Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o as the voice of the titular bot, the film hails from Chris Sanders, the filmmaker behind Lilo & Stitch, The Croods, and How to Train Your Dragon.
Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros.
Elsewhere, in less family-friendly news, another criminal clown has yet to recoup at the box office. After a disappointing debut, Joker: Folie à Deux has suffered an 81 percent drop at the domestic box office. Coming in at third place, the offbeat, genre-bending musical earned a measly $7 million domestically, during its second weekend in theaters, bringing its global total to $51.6 million ($165.3 million globally).
The followup to Todd Phillips Oscar-winning smash hit Joker has been tepidly received by critics and audiences alike, as the numbers can attest, despite touting the combined star power of Lady Gaga and Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix. The sequel sees Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck confined to Arkham Asylum, where he forms an anarchic bond with Harley Quinn that leads to death and destruction across Gotham City.
“After the first JokerJoaquin and I were really sad. Like, really sad. We didn’t want it to end,” Phillips told EW of his reason for plotting a sequel. “Not only because we like working together, but because we didn’t want to leave Arthur. We loved Arthur and became attached to that character. Simply put, it was to spend more time with Arthur.”
Now six weeks into its run, Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is still clinging tightly to the top 5, dropping by just 30 percent from last weekend. An additional $7 million brings the film’s domestic tally to $275 million ($420 million globally).
The sequel to the 1988 classic sees Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, and Michael Keaton reprising their roles while welcoming Jenna Ortega as Astrid, the rebellious daughter of Ryder’s Lydia Deetz, who accidentally opens a portal to the Afterlife. As the title implies, the family is forced to call upon a certain trickster to save her before time runs out.
Courtesy of Focus Features
Rounding out fifth is an unconventional biopic from Pharrell Williams. The artist and legendary music producer has opted to tell his life story via Legos, and thus far it seems theatergoers are intrigued: Piece by Piece debuted to $3.8 million domestically. Described as a “by-the-numbers — or rather, by-the-brick — biographical documentary,” in EW’s review, the film features talking heads as Pharrell traces his story from Virginia to the recording studio. Also appearing in Lego form are such artists as Neville, Jay-Z, Gwen Stefani, Snoop Dogg, and Justin Timberlake.
Other new openings this week saw Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice tank at the box office with an estimated domestic pull of only $1.6 million. “As a bomb-tossing cultural buzz film, it was probably always destined to be a tempest in a teapot,” Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman wrote on Sunday. “The Apprentice doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know,” Maureen Lee Lenker wrote in her EW review.
Saturday Nightthe account of Saturday Night Live‘s very first night on air told from behind the scenes, pulled an estimated $3.4 million domestically. SNL alum Dan Aykroyd, who is portrayed in the film, sang the film’s praises on social media: “What a propulsive, engaging, funny, beautifully cast and acted, suspenseful, adventurous, music-filled ride, A perfect window into the creative process at its highest level.”
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