Box office: Grisly indie horror ‘Terrifier 3’ slaughters its studio competition

To say that October has been horrible at the box office so far would be putting it lightly, but low-budget horror might end up being this month’s savior. Read on for the weekend box office report.

After Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix‘s “Joker: Folie à Deux” bombed in its opening weekend and was hated by critics and audiences alike, it wasn’t likely to hold up well in its second weekend, and indeed it didn’t.

Instead, the box office phenom of the weekend was the breakout success of Damien Leone‘s grisly indie horror flick, “Terrifier 3,” once again starring David Howard Thornton as the smiling serial killer, Art the Clown, and Lauren LaVara as his final girl nemesis.

By the time the movie opened on Thursday night, the rave reviews it racked up out of Fantastic Fest in Austin had softened a bit, although it was still rated fresh with 78% on Rotten Tomatoes. Released theatrically without a rating by Cineverse into 2,514 theaters, “Terrifier 3” began its run with $2.6 million in previews and a whopping $8.2 million Friday, including said previews. That was more than all five of the other new releases made on Friday put together. Ultimately, “Terrifier 3” wound up with $18.3 million for its estimated opening, more than making back its reported $5 million production budget and winning the weekend with ease. Art’s fans gave the threequel a “B” CinemaScore, which isn’t bad for what could have been a controversial slasher.

DreamWorks Animation’s well-regarded “The Wild Robot” took second place with $13.5 million, down 29% in its third weekend for a domestic total of $83.7 million.

By this point, you might be wondering what happened to “Joker: Folie à Deux.” It might be too early to tell, since third place is a dead heat between that and Tim Burton‘s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” According to Sunday estimates from Warner Bros, the distributor for both movies, “Beetlejuice” is just $5,000 behind “Joker,” both with around $7.1 million. There’s just no escaping that 81% hit “Joker” took from its opening weekend, one of the worst drops for a comic book movie, even worse than 2022’s “Morbius.”

“Beetlejuice” made another $4.6 million overseas this weekend to bring its global total to $420.3 million, but $275.6 million of that is from its North American release where it’s currently the fifth-biggest blockbuster of 2024, right behind “Dune: Part Two.”

The “Joker” sequel might not be saved by overseas box office, because it added just $22.7 million internationally this weekend for a global total of $165 million. Any chance of achieving the billion-dollar worldwide gross of the first movie seems long gone.

One big caveat for this weekend report is that the Tamil-language actioner, “Vettaiyan,” reported $1.1 million in box office for Thursday, but then nothing for the weekend. Logic would indicate that it brought in enough business to potentially crack the top five, but with nothing official as of this writing, it’s hard to tell where it might end up.

The Pharrell Williams LEGO doc “Piece by Piece,” released by Focus Features into 1,863 theaters on Friday with strong reviews from its festival debuts, only made $3.8 million this weekend, which in theory would put it into fifth place, bearing in mind the above caveat. Even so, it received an “A” CinemaScore, and that opening is almost as much as Brett Morgen‘s equally unconventional David Bowie doc, “Moonage Daydream,” made in its entire 2022 run.

Paramount’s animated “Transformers One” took sixth place with $3.7 million, down 32% for a weak domestic gross of just $52.8 million.

Jason Reitman‘s ensemble comedy “Saturday Night” — about the 1975 premiere night for the NBC staple “Saturday Night Live” — expanded nationwide into 2,309 theaters, but the best it could do was seventh place with an estimated $3.4 million, averaging less than $1,500 per location. That one received a “B+” CinemaScore.

Toho International opened the latest installment of its anime franchise, “My Hero Academia The Movie: You’re Next,” into 1,845 theaters where it grossed $3 million and received an “A-” CinemaScore. It has been a while since there has been an anime hit in theaters, and it’s doubtful we’ll see as many in 2025.

Tim Burton looks to have a second movie in the top 10 as the 1993 animated film he produced, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” was re-released by Disney into 1,700 theaters, enough for it to crack the top 10 with another $2.3 million. Oddly, after 30 years and multiple re-releases, it still hasn’t cracked $100 million at the box office.

Briarcliff failed to convince audiences to go out to see a Donald Trump biopic, as “The Apprentice,” starring Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong, floundered with just $1.6 million in 1,740 theaters despite better reviews than anyone could have expected. Even so, it received the worst CinemaScore of the weekend with a “B-.”

A24 gave John Crowley‘s drama “We Live in Time,” starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, a platform release into five theaters in New York and L.A. where it made $225,000 ahead of its expansion into limited release on Friday and nationwide release on October 25.

For whatever reason, Warner Bros. chose not to report box office for the doc “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,” but it also hasn’t shared a theater count for its nationwide release.

Fewer than half of players picked “Terrifier 3” to win the weekend in the box office prediction game, though most picked “The Wild Robot” for second place. Many had “Joker” dropping to third place but only five had it dropping to fourth, so we’ll have to wait for actuals to see what happens there. And if “Vettaiyan” ends up reporting enough box office to get into fifth place, only one player picked “None of These” for that position.

Five players got perfect scores in the October 4 game with “MellowDrama” coming out just ahead of “DanC” in terms of points.

On Friday Paramount releases the horror sequel “Smile 2,” and I’ll have more about its box office prospects in Wednesday’s box office preview.