Joker Movie Projected to Win Second Weekend in a Row at Box Office

It looks like the impressive box office performance of the Joker will carry on into the weekend as the DC Comics movie is poised to continue dominating at movie theaters. After blasting off to a $96.2 million opening weekend, the Joaquin Phoenix-starring movie is projected to take the top spot again despite new competition entering the picture. According to early projections from Deadline, Joker is set to make $42.5 million in its second weekend at the box office. This places the movie ahead of estimates from The Addams Family animated movie ($28-$30 million) and the Will Smith sci-fi flick Gemini Man ($24-29 million).

Joker has also experienced massive success in its first weekdays in theaters, with both Monday and Tuesday breaking records for the month of October. It made $9.7 million on Monday and added another $13.9 million on Tuesday.

Director Todd Phillips previously thanked fans for the movie’s success, especially in light of the controversy that plagued discussion of the movie in the media.

“Thank you to everyone for showing up,” Phillips wrote on Instagram. “It’s been a bumpy ride but reading your feedback and feeling all the love makes it all worth it. Joker is everywhere.”

Phillips received some backlash for his comments on why he doesn’t make comedies anymore, which is also the reason why he decided to tackle Joker instead, during an interview with Vanity Fair.

“There were articles written about why comedies don’t work anymore—I’ll tell you why, because all the f*cking funny guys are like, ‘F*ck this sh*t, because I don’t want to offend you,’” Phillips ranted. “It’s hard to argue with 30 million people on Twitter. You just can’t do it, right? So you just go, ‘I’m out.’ I’m out, and you know what? With all my comedies—I think that what comedies in general all have in common—is they’re irreverent. So I go, ‘How do I do something irreverent, but f*ck comedy? Oh I know, let’s take the comic book movie universe and turn it on its head with this.’ And so that’s really where that came from.”

Actor Marc Maron, who stars in Joker, disputed that idea on his WTF with Marc Maron podcast.

“There’s plenty of people being funny right now,” Maron said. “Not only being funny, but being really fucking funny. There are still lines to be rode. If you like to ride a line, you can still ride a line. If you want to take chances, you can still take chances. Really, the only thing that’s off the table, culturally, at this juncture –and not even entirely– is shamelessly punching down for the sheer joy of hurting people. For the sheer excitement and laughter that some people get from causing people pain, from making people uncomfortable, from making people feel excluded. Y’know, that excitement.”

Joker is now playing in theaters everywhere.