Clown Vs. Clown: ‘Terrifier 3’ Shows Teeth With $18M+ As ‘Joker 2’ Posts Record Drop For DC Character Pic; Awards Season Darlings Shriek – Sunday Box Office

In one of the year’s second-best triumphs for indie genre cinema after NEON’s Longlegs, Cineverse’s under $5M investment, Terrifier 3, is screaming to an estimated $18.3M+ 3-day after an $8.2M Friday and $5.9M Saturday. That Sunday hold -30% is on account of the Indigenous Peoples holiday. The threequel received a B CinemaScore, which is high praise from the moviegoer pollster as it doesn’t hand out a lot of As to horror titles.

The jawdropping awe is how this movie, which was largely marketed to Cineverse’s sole Bloody Disgusting fanbase and 80M streaming subscribers across 30 channels for under $1M, broke out to bigger numbers. Unlike some of the other wide entries this weekend, iSpot doesn’t show any national spots for Terrifier 3.

Terrifier 2 developed quite the cult following in its theatrical and post-theatrical, and what’s going on here with Terrifier 3 is one of the oldest tricks in the Hollywood rulebook: noticing the popularity of IP in the home ancillaries of one sequel, and doubling down on the next installment, read Austin Powers 1 & 2, and John Wick 1 and 2. Cineverse saw a tripling in its Scream Box streaming subs after Terrifier 2 was released. They further expanded the audience, particularly Latino and Hispanic moviegoers who showed up at 48% to Caucasian’s 34%, 10% Black, 2% Asian and 5% Native American/other.

PostTrak audiences gave Terrifier 3 four stars with a 76% positive and 59% definite recommend. Male leaning at 61% with 18-24 year olds being the largest demo at 37%. Terrifier 3 is playing evenly across the country, but best in East, South Central and West. AMC Burbank has the highest gross for the pic with $42K through Saturday.  

PostTrak observed that under 25 moviegoers went in groups to see Terrifier 3: 19% took one friend, while 30% went with two to four friends. Sixty-two percent said they’d tell their friends to see this threequel in a theater, no matter what. Big walk-up business with 55% of Terrifier 3‘s crowd buying their tickets on the same day they watched it. Among the reasons why people went to this clown movie versus the other one on the marquee: 52% said it was part of a genre they love, while 40% said Terrifier 3 is part of a franchise they love.

Warner Bros’ second weekend of Joker: Folie à Deux is posting a -82% freefall with around $6.7M-$7M per industry estimates (Warners reporting official figure soon) — that’s the absolute worst hold for a DC character movie in the history of the brand on the big screen. Triple note, James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Studios did not steer or shepherd Joker 2. The Joaquin Phoenix-Lady Gaga R-rated musical is even getting kicked out of No. 2 by a cartoon robot, DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s Wild Robot ($13.45M third weekend) and also out of third by Warner Bros’ own Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (estimated $7.3M sixth weekend). This drop isn’t a shocker as we saw Joker 2 doing worse than the second frame of Marvel Cinematic Universe’s The Marvels (-78%) which was the worst hold for that Disney label’s movies.

Joker 2‘s second weekend drop is steeper than the previous worst drop for a DC character movie, summer 2023’s The Flash (-73%). It’s also more severe than the second weekend of 2021’s The Suicide Squad (-72%) which remember had a theatrical day-and-date release with HBO Max; those dynamic distributed titles always tumbled in their second weekend. The only nice thing to say here about Joker 2 is that it’s second weekend is more than Wonder Woman 1984‘s second weekend ($5.4M) which of course was due to theater closures during Covid, and it’s better than the second weekend of Jonah Hex ($1.6M) which owns the worst opening ever for a DC movie at $5.3M.

However, a slew of prestige awards season contenders aren’t finding sizable audiences: Sony’s Saturday Night ($3.4M), Focus Features’ Piece by Piece ($3.8M), and Briarcliff Entertainment’s The Apprentice ($1.58M). Here’s what’s heart-wrenching: These are critically acclaimed movies which are vying for a shot this awards season, who had an immense amount of support from their respective studios, further bolstered by fall film festival launches, as well as wide PR support from filmmaker/casts, and they’re just not clicking. Each of these studios believed in these movies as theatrical plays. Hopefully their commercial results here won’t tarnish their awards season runway. Juxtapose this to Netflix, which will be trumpeting their wares Emilia Pérez and the Angelina Jolie-led Maria all the way to Oscar night, March 2, 2025. The box office for these movies won’t be reported, as the streamer gives them limited qualifying runs, and therefore their patina won’t be impacted.

“Streaming has just crushed the prospects for these types of movies,” said one rival studio executive about the misfiring going on here for Saturday Night (80% RT critics, B+ CinemaScore), Piece by Piece (81% RT critics, solid A CinemaScore) and Apprentice (77% RT critics, B- CinemaScore). At the same time, look at the rabbit which Searchlight pulled out of its hat in the bawdy Emma Stone, ultimate 4x Oscar winning Poor Things (which finaled at $34.5M stateside, $117.6M worldwide). What gives? Each of these pics, unfortunately, has their own set of mild acne, if not worse.

Note these movies are going earlier in the fall versus later in the holiday season due to the crowded field.