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Joker 2 appears to still be in free fall as the poorly performing sequel is overtaken at the US box office by an unassuming indie horror.
It’s been nothing but bad news for Joker: Folie A Deux since its much-anticipated theatrical release earlier this month.
The film – which sees Joaquin Phoenix reprise his role as Arthur Fleck opposite Lady Gaga as Dr Harleen Quinzel – has hugely underperformed at the box office, with negative reviews continuing to roll in. Most recently, director Paul Schrader said he stopped watching after just 15 minutes.
Elsewhere, however, one sequel is outperforming expectations – with the extremely gory low-budget indie slasher Terrifier 3 raking in $18m (£13.83m) in its opening weekend to surpass the entire theatrical run of Terrifier 2 (2022).
According to NBC News, this milestone puts Terrifier 3 at No 1 in the US box office, where it has overtaken Joker 2 – which has suffered a terrible fall in its second weekend with a paltry $7m or £5.4m (one of the worst drops in history for a film opening in more than 2,000 locations).
The film is set to receive its digital release less than a month after its opening in cinemas, with the sequel apparently struggling to recoup its $190-200m (£145-153m) budget, having made a reported $120m to date. In comparison, 2019’s Joker debuted to $96.2m (£73m) on its way to a total of $1bn (£762m).
Released on 11 October, Terrifier 3 sees the return of Art the Clown, a demonic serial killer (David Howard Thornton) who is as brutal and monstrous as ever.
Over two, now three instalments, the Terrifier franchise,from director Damien Leone, has earned a reputation with its cult following for its incredibly graphic scenes of murder and gore. One such scene, for example, sees one of Art’s victims flayed alive.
Its latest entry into the franchise has prompted walk-out, vomiting and fainting in cinemas, which Leone has denied was a “marketing ploy” invented to promote the film.
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A festive affair, Terrifier 3 sees Art terrorise a teenage girl and her family during the Christmas holidays.
Fans don’t seem to mind the extreme gore, however – quite the contrary, with Terrifier 3 earning 74 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, no mean feat for a horror film, a genre that tends to fare generally poorly on the review aggregator website.
By comparison, Joker 2 continues to flail with its 33 per cent Rotten Tomato score. The film even made cinema history for all the wrong reasons – becoming the first Hollywood comic book movie to earn a D CinemaScore from opening day audiences.
CinemaScore measures a film’s appeal by polling early reactions to major releases.
