Joker: Folie à Deux has experienced a dramatic fall at the North American box office, dropping 80% from its debut weekend.
After opening with a $40 million (£30.65 million) debut, the highly anticipated sequel managed just $7.1 million in its second weekend, marking the biggest collapse for a comic-book film, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, was dethroned by indie horror sensation Terrifier 3, which earned an estimated $18.2 million over the weekend.
In addition to being knocked out of first place, Joker: Folie à Deux was also overtaken by the animated film The Wild Robot, which held on to second place with $13.4 million.
Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice slipped to fourth, earning $7 million.
The critical reception for Joker: Folie à Deux has been mixed, with reviews describing it as “bleak and daring,” while others found it “depressingly dull and plodding.”
Rounding out the top five at the box office was the comedy-drama Piece by Piece, which features Lego animation and a star-studded voice cast that includes Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, and Busta Rhymes.
Meanwhile, The Apprentice, a biopic about Donald Trump’s rise in the 1970s and 80s New York real estate world, opened in tenth place, earning just $1.6 million.
The film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, received mostly favorable reviews but sparked a legal threat from Trump himself.
The former president took issue with a controversial scene depicting him raping his first wife, Ivana, and dismissed the film as “garbage” and “election interference.”
The Apprentice is set to have its UK premiere at the London Film Festival this week, while Trump continues to denounce it, calling the film a “politically disgusting hatchet job” in a late-night post on his Truth Social platform.
The film begins with a disclaimer noting that many of its events have been fictionalized.
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