This weekend’s box office is a tale of two clowns as Cineverse/Bloody Disgusting’s “Terrifier 3” has become a must-see film for horror fans with an opening weekend of $18.3 million from 2,514 theaters, while Warner Bros. .’ “Joker: Folie a Deux” suffered one of the worst second weekend drops ever for a wide release.

Todd Phillips’ $190 million sequel to “Joker,” the first R-rated film to gross $1 billion worldwide, has fallen 81% from its $37.8 million opening weekend to just $7 million. According to data from Box Office Mojo and exhibitor sources, that will be the worst second-weekend percentage decline for any wide release with an opening weekend of $30 million or more if it holds up after Monday’s numbers are reported.

“Terrifier 3,” a film with a combined production and marketing spend of just $2.5 million, has completely eclipsed “Terrifier 2”’s $10.6 million domestic total. Even if its second weekend numbers fall off a cliff because there isn’t a significant group of interested moviegoers besides hardcore fans, Damien Leone’s slasher film is still enjoying a huge return on investment, having earned higher opening weekends than the Blumhouse films of this year. Speak no evil” and “Night Swim.”

In non-clown news, Universal/DreamWorks’ ‘The Wild Robot’ continues to perform spectacularly to its widespread acclaim, dropping just 29% in its third weekend to $13.5 million. The film is also helped by a significant number of children being off school on Monday for Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day, increasing attendance for the matinee.

With “The Wild Robot” earning an estimated total of $83.7 million domestically and $148.4 million worldwide, DreamWorks has greenlit a sequel to the film.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” remains an outing for Warner Bros. amid the failure of “Joker 2,” which grossed $7.1 million in its sixth weekend as it continues to stretch itself as a Halloween offering. Although it was primarily an American hit, grossing just $137.5 million overseas and $415 million worldwide, the sequel’s $275 million domestic total puts it on the cusp of passing “Dune: Part Two” as Warner’s highest-grossing film this year in the US and Canada.

Rounding out the top 5 is Focus Features’ “Piece By Piece,” a Lego-animated documentary about Grammy-winning musician Pharrell Williams, opening to $3.8 million in 1,851 theaters. The newcomer just beat Paramount’s “Transformers One,” which earned $3.6 million in its fourth weekend for a disappointing domestic total of $52.8 million.

A grab bag of wide releases and specials fill out the rest of the top 10, with Sony/Columbia’s “Saturday Night” in seventh place with a modest opening weekend of $3.5 million from 2,309 theaters after a platform release in Los Angeles and New York last weekend.

Based on the very first broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” in 1975, Jason Reitman’s film was well received with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 80% critics and 90% audiences, but it faces an extremely uphill climb to a theatrical release. to make a profit, even against expectations. modest production budget of $30 million.

In eighth place is Toho’s “My Hero Academia: You’re Next,” the fourth film in the hit anime series that grossed $3 million from 1,845 theaters. It beats out a seasonal re-release of Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” from Disney, which grossed $2.3 million from 1,700 locations this weekend.

Finally, there’s Briarcliff Entertainment’s “The Apprentice,” a film starring Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong as his mentor, Roy Cohn. The film was widely publicized after its Cannes premiere due to the reluctance of major Hollywood distributors to pick up the film in the midst of Trump’s campaign to return to the White House, but only grossed $1.5 million in 1,740 theaters.

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