It might be kind to let the disaster of “Joker: Folie à Deux” (Warner Bros.) rest in peace, but the reality is the film is in only its fifth day of release. And as weekend two grows closer, it’s possible that it could fall as low as #3 and set an all-time record for the biggest second-weekend drop for a major release.
After Thursday previews came in at just over half of what “Joker” saw in 2019, the bottom fell out. The studio’s own weekend estimate slipped to $40 million, which proved unduly optimistic; the actual was $37.8 million (That’s a six percent miss; it’s rare for an estimate to be more than three percent off.) Monday grossed $1,825,000 — less than five percent of the opening-weekend total when eight percent would be the norm.
The worst-case scenario would be both its rank this upcoming weekend, and a historically bad second weekend drop. Before opening, “Folie” seemed certain to repeat as #1 in its second week against no new major titles. Instead, the third week of Universal’s “The Wild Robot” appears to be the film to beat on what will be an otherwise unimpressive weekend.
We have three films with a shot at $10 million or more, perhaps none more than $13 million, and their ranking is unpredictable.
“The Wild Robot” could be $12 million-$13 million, but “Terrifier 3” (Cineverse) is the wildcard. The third film in the low-budget ($2 million) Christmas-set clown slasher franchise, it’s the first to open in wild release. In 2022, “Terrorizer 2” grossed nearly $11 million domestic on a $250,000 budget. It’s unrated, which will make most locations adults-only. Industry consensus is around $8 million, with a potential upside more likely.
If “Folie” drops 70 percent to $11.3 million that would be bad, but not historically so. Last year “The Marvels” (Disney) opened to $46 million before falling 78 percent in its second weekend for $10.1 million. A similar drop for “Folie” would put it at $8.3 million.
Even 78 percent would not the record for a second-weekend drop. For films that opened over $20 million, that record is currently held by “Friday the 13th,” which dropped 80 percent in 2009 ($40.6 million to $7.9 million) and “Halloween” in 2022 ($40.0 million to $8 million; it was also streaming on Peacock).
For “Folie” to exceed either film, it would have to gross under $7.5 million. That may be less likely since it’s continued to play on most premium screens, but not impossible.
Other films in play this week — holdover “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (WB), expansion of “Saturday Night” (Sony), and other openers “Piece by Piece” (Focus), “The Apprentice” (Briarcliffe), “My Hero Academia: You’re Next” (Toho) — all are expected to do less than $7.5 million to fill out most of the top 10.
All told, “Folie” looks on track with a U.S./Canada total around $70 million and around $200 million worldwide. It cost the studio upward of $300 million in production and marketing costs.
