The Boxoffice Podium
Forecasting the Top 3 Movies at the Domestic Box Office | October 11 – 13, 2024
Week 41 | October 11 – 13, 2024
1. Terrifier 3
Cineverse | NEW
Weekend Range: $12M – $18M
Showtime Marketshare: 8%
Beginning life in a duet of short films which found their way into the 2013 anthology movie All Hallows Eve, the character of homicidal maniac Art the Clown has gone from grassroots origins to cult phenomenon as the lead character in two previous Terrifier slasher films. All written and directed by creator Damien Leone, 2016’s first feature-length Terrifier only garnered $339,946K domestically, but Terrifier 2 managed $10.9M domestic in 2022.
The new installment, Terrifier 3, sees both David Howard Thornton returning as Art the Clown alongside Lauren LaVera as final girl Sienna Shaw. Rotten Tomatoes critical currently stands at 88%, but may drop lower once more mainstream publications review. Still, core fan outlets like Empire, IGN, and io9 are all raving, and that’s how momentum builds for an outlier title like this. Low-budget/oddball horror entries like Late Night with the Devil ($10M) and The Substance ($9.7M) have been breaking through this year, while Longlegs over-performed with a $74M domestic take. Terrifier offers grindhouse splatter with no pretensions, making it an easy sell over some of the more nebulous horror films of 2024.
Unlike Joaquin Phoenix’s mopey singing mental patient, the genuinely transgressive R-rated clown movie Terrifier 3 has been delivering pre-sales for a film of its scale. A location count of over 2,500 screens confirms that major circuits nationwide are booking the film. The poor performance of the Joker sequel will also help redirect adult audiences looking for the other killer clown flick in theaters this weekend. Our forecasting panel believes this film will clear the $10 million mark this weekend, potentially opening close to $20 million. We would normally cap this film’s ceiling at $20M, but the graphic nature of the franchise has us apprehensive to forecast a significant number of walk-ups beyond its core horror audience. With major chains behind it, this title should break through with a competitive showtime marketshare. If Joker Folie a Deux underperforms once again this weekend, Terrifier 3 could pull off the shock upset of the decade at the domestic boxoffice.
2. Joker: Folie à Deux
Warner Bros. | Week 2
Weekend Range: $10M – $15M
Showtime Marketshare: 13%
After Monday actuals, Warners’ comic book sequel Joker: Folie à Deux opened even worse than initially reported, with a $37.6M opening frame as opposed to the initial $40M estimate from the studio. Considering the original Joker had a $96.2M debut in 2019, that’s a 2.5X drop from the first to second film. After the September premiere at the Venice Film Festival the movie got raked over the coals by critics, quickly going from being a contender for biggest movie of the year with a $100M+ opening forecast to halving that tracking to $50M-$60M before the weekend, then wound up where it wound up. The Friday-to-Sunday numbers paint the clearest picture, as toxic word of mouth saw the movie descend from $20.2M Friday (with $7M in Thursday previews) to $6.1M Sunday. It had a $1.8M Monday and a $2.6M Tuesday for a running domestic cume of $42.1M. We’re looking at a 50%+ drop this weekend, possibly cratering around 70% to go as low as $10M in its second frame. At this point in release, Joker Folie a Deux isn’t running on fumes—the only thing it still has going for it is morbid curiosity.
In terms of expectations vs. performance Joker: Folie à Deux may go down as one of the biggest disappointments in history. No one would fault Warners for wanting a sequel to such a seismic hit, getting all key creatives back (and cutting them big checks) in the process. It’s certainly not the R-rating, as the phenomenal success of Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine can attest. Let’s also not blame the dark subject matter which tiptoes around comic book lore, as DC’s own The Penguin series (sans Batman) is currently rocking the ratings charts for MAX.
One positive is if you compare it to other major studio live-action musicals from the past few years, Joker 2 lands on the higher-end in terms of domestic opening…
- The Lion King (2019) $191.7M opening/$543.6M cume
- The Little Mermaid (2023) – $95.5M opening/$298.1M cume
- Aladdin (2019) – $91.5M opening/$355.5M cume
- Wonka (2023) – $39M opening/$218.4M cume
- Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) – $37.6M opening
- Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! (2018) – $34.9M opening/$120.6M cume
- Mean Girls (2024) – $28.6M opening/$72.4M cume
- Mary Poppins Returns (2018) – $23.5M opening/$171.9M
- The Color Purple (2023) – $11.7M opening/ $60.6M cume
- In the Heights (2021) – $11.5M opening/$29.9M cume
- Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022) – $11.4M opening/$46.8M cume
- West Side Story (2021) – $10.5M opening/$38.5M cume
- The Greatest Showman (2017) – $8.8M opening/$174.3M cume
- Dear Evan Hansen (2021) – $7.4M opening/$15M cume
- Cats (2019) – $6.6M opening/$27.1M cume
TOSS-UP:
3. The Wild Robot
Universal | Week 3
Weekend Range: $8M – $12M
Showtime Marketshare: 12%
3. Saturday Night
Sony | Week 3
Weekend Range: $8M – $12M
Showtime Marketshare: 7%
Although wildly different, these two movies are currently tracking closely as they enter their third week in release. Saturday Night is entering its wide expansion, following to successful weekends in limited release, betrays the wild robot in Showtime market share by a notable margin.
Wild Robot doesn’t have any family competition, having vanquished Transformers One while Piece by Piece is not being targeted to kids (despite being a CGI LEGO film). The next mammoth animated kids movie is Disney’s rushed-to-theaters Moana 2, which isn’t arriving until Thanksgiving. Between Saturday Night (79% critical) and Wild Robot (98% critical), the latter is certainly coming through with the best word of mouth and audience scores (Robot at 98% audience, Saturday still less than 50 reviews but more mixed so far) going into the weekend. Wild Robot‘s domestic cume is currently $65.4M, and $102.2M globally, but looking to leg it out through October.
Meanwhile, director Jason Reitman’s SNL origin story Saturday Night has been performing strongly over its first two frames, earning $270.4K at 5 theaters frame one, then $270.9 at 21 frame two. These period media topics aren’t the type of movies that claim a big opening weekend anymore, as with Steven Spielberg’s The Post which platformed for three weekends before going wide at $19.3M in frame four… and that was with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep. Saturday Night boasts few big names, but Sony seems confident on a slow rollout and long theatrical run for audiences to discover the title, which may also be an awards contender.
Share this post