There was no Halloween remake coasting to a big second weekend at the box office this year, as Jamie Lee Curtis manage to do this weekend in 2018 with $31 million (coming off of a $76 million opening weekend). This year, Joker — in its fourth week — and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, in its second weekend, battle it out for first place. Numbers won’t be official until tomorrow, but it appears that Joker will retake the top spot at the box office with $18.9 million compared to the $18.5 earned by the disappointing domestic run of the Angelina Jolie film. They have earned $277 million and $65 million, respectively. Granted, both are doing well overseas. Maleficent 2 has racked up nearly $200 million globally in only 10 days, while Joker has earned $849 million worldwide. It’s now the highest grossing R-Rated movie of all time, both domestic and overseas.
Holdovers took the third and fourth spots, as well, Zombieland Double Tap dropped a steep 68 percent in its second weekend, earning $11.5 million to bring its 10-day total to $47 million for a film that cost Columbia Pictures $42 million to produce (it’s added $16 million overseas). Addams Family, meanwhile, has held fairly steady, earning $11 million and $72 million after three weeks. It has not rolled out internationally yet.
There were three new films opening this weekend, two of which opened in the middle of the pack. Countdown led the newcomers with a better-than-expected $9.1 million, surpassing its $6.5 million budget in its opening weekend. Critical reviews weren’t great (24 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), but it provided just what younger audiences wanted the weekend before Halloween, and just what STX Films wanted: A modest success. Sony’s Black And Blue, meanwhile, earned $8.5 million to come in sixth place, and did so on a $12 million budget. The Naomie Harris cop thriller can boast a 93 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, along with a middling critical score of 46 percent.
In seventh place, Will Smith’s Gemini Man continues to suffer, earning $3.9 million in its third weekend to bring its total to a miserable $43 million on a $140 million budget. The good news for Paramount Pictures, at least, is that it has more than doubled is domestic earnings overseas, where it has earned $105 million, but even still, it’s likely to end up deep in the red.
A24’s critically beloved Robert Pattinson film, The Lighthouse, from director Robert Eggers jumped into the top 10, earning $3 million in only 586 theaters. That’s a better showing than the weekend’s other new entry, The Current War starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon. The film was a casualty of the Weinstein Company, but 101 Studios picked it up and trotted it out to 1000 screens for $2.7 million. Downton Abbey closes out the top ten with $1.95 million and $92 million overall. It’s now earned $170 million worldwide on a $20 million budget.
Things should heat back up next weekend with four new releases, led by Terminator: Dark Fate. It will look to fend off Harriet, Arctic Dogs, and Ed Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn.
Source: Deadline, Box Office Mojo
