“Joker” Crawls Back on Top on Slow Weekend

By Kip Mooney • On • In Weekend Box Office Report Weekend Box Office Report Comments Off on “Joker” Crawls Back on Top on Slow Weekend

BOX OFFICE REPORT

October 25-27, 2019

(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 5

Joker $18.9 million
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil  $18.5 million
The Addams Family  $11.7 million
Zombieland: Double Tap $11.6 million
Countdown $9 million

With a lack of competition among the new releases, Joker climbed its way back to the top of the heap with an estimated $18.9 million. That marks a third week at No. 1, as it also celebrated becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all-time worldwide. (It won't earn that distinction domestically, as it's still about $100 million below The Passion of the Christ.) It's also outgrossed other DC titles like Justice League and will soon pass Man of Steel.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil dropped to second place, and in 10 days it still has yet to earn what the first one did in three. It's possible it may end up earning less than even the underperforming Dumbo remake, proving not all of Disney's IP mining will be successful. But The Addams Family sure is, surprisingly. The animated feature from United Artists – which has had a terrible track record this year – has earned $72 million so far, and should cross $100 million domestically.

Zombieland: Double Tap took a hit straight to the face, as it fell to fourth place. The belated sequel has earned less than $50 million to date and seems unlikely to match the original's $75 million haul. Countdown was the only new release to crack the top 5, earning a meager $9 million. Still, the PG-13 horror flick cost only $12 million, so it should be profitable in a matter of days.

Outside the top 5:

  • This Weekend's Indie Champ: Jojo Rabbit, Take Waititi's "anti-hate satire." The TIFF People's Choice Award winner averaged $18,927 as it expanded to 55 screens.
  • Neither Black and Blue nor The Current War lit up screens. The former, a cop drama, earned $8.3 million. The latter, a biopic of Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, earned $2.7 million. That's even less than The Lighthouse, which only played on half the screens.
  • Bruce Springsteen didn't put on a good show for once. Western Stars, a concert doc in support of the album of the same name, only managed $560,000. That's less than Kanye West's IMAX feature Jesus Is King. That film earned $830,000 on around the same number of screens.

Next week: 

November starts off with four new releases, only one of which will make serious money. Terminator: Dark Fate is the latest attempt to recapture the magic of the first two James Cameron-directed films. Reviews are pretty good, but will audiences care, especially since they've been burned by this franchise so many times? Even if it's not a massive hit, it should be enough to open at No. 1, though $35 million is nothing to get excited about. Harriet should deliver a respectable debut, while Motherless Brooklyn looks to be another Oscar-season casualty. And keep an eye on Arctic Dogs, which has the potential to be one of the lowest-opening wide releases ever.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.