Battle at the Box Office 10/14
Joker remained at the top of the box office with the biggest second weekend in October history and dropping far less than a typical superhero/comic book movie.
Joker took in another $55 million, which is only around a 43% drop from last weekend’s record-breaking opening and it’s the biggest second weekend in October history, topping Gravity’s second weekend which was $43.2 million and the previous record holder. Joker now has over $192.7 million domestic and over $543.9 million worldwide for two weeks out, which makes it the ninth highest-grossing DC worldwide of all time currently.
The new animated Addams Family did the best of the weekend’s new releases, taking second place with $30.3 million. Adjusting for inflation, it’s just slightly below Addams Family Values, which would have had $30.7 million in 2019 dollars, but well below what The Addams Family 1991 would have had, with over $51 million in 2019 dollars for its opening weekend.
Gemini Man opened with a disappointing $20.5 million for third place. It is one of Ang Lee’s best wide openings but also only 4 of his movies have ever gone directly to a wide opening, with most of them gradually gaining theaters over many weeks. It’s 16th as far as Will Smith openings, sitting between The Pursuit of Happyness and Enemy of the State and it’s well below some of his more notorious movies like After Earth and Wild Wild West. Maybe the confusing nature of the various versions contributed to the low opening, as it was in regular, 3D, high-frame-rate, high-frame 3D and more and was probably more research than the average moviegoer wanted to put in.
Abominable and Downton Abbey rounded out the top 5.
The weekend’s other new release, Jexi, opened in eighth place with $3.1 million. That’s just outside being one of the 50 worst openings for a movie in 2,000 to 2,499 theaters at #51 between Disney’s Tall Tale and City of Ember.
Bong Joon-Ho’s latest film Parasite took the Per Theater average with a massive $125,421 in each of the three theaters it played in, which is the largest Per Theater average of the year and one of the biggest of all time. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and will be a major Oscar contender, especially in the new Best International Film category.