Laughter and dollars from 'Joker' in its first weekend at the box office
Joker" terrified its rivals in US theaters and not only hit number one this weekend but also broke the record for a film released in the month of October.
According to data from the specialized portal Box Office Mojo, "Joker" collected 93.5 million dollars in the "domestic" section, a category in which income in the US and Canada are grouped.
The previous mark for a film released in October was "Venom" (2018) with 80.2 million. Worldwide, "Joker" has so far totaled 234 million. Driven by the enormous work of Joaquin Phoenix, who sounds like a favorite for the Oscar for best actor, but also dragging considerable controversy due to critics who accuse him of encouraging violence, "Joker" delves into the origins of Batman's great enemy in a film directed by Todd Phillips ("The Hangover" trilogy).
Another of the weekend's headlines was the phenomenal landing of "Pain and Glory" by Pedro Almodóvar, which although it could only be seen in four theaters due to being a limited release (release of a film only in key US markets). ) got $160,000 in total.
Thus, "Pain and Glory" scored about $40,000 per movie, a very good record in a statistic closely followed by the Hollywood industry (for comparison, "Joker" got just over $21,000 per movie). This data gives even more hope to the Spanish filmmaker in the face of Oscar nominations.
Going back to the weekend's top grossing movies, the animated film "Abominable" brought in $12 million. Jill Culton and Todd Wilderman direct this film for DreamWorks about a young and insecure Yeti who gets lost in the streets of a Chinese metropolis until Yi, a teenager who dreams of reaching Mount Everest, finds him in her building and decides to embark on a travel with him to reunite him with his family. Rounding out the podium was "Downton Abbey", which on this occasion pocketed 8 million dollars.
With actors from the homonymous series such as Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville and Michelle Dockery, among others, this film directed by Michael Engler continues the story of the wealthy Crawley family, who receive some very special guests in their castle in 1927: the king and queen of England, George V and his consort, Mary of Teck.
The fourth place went to "Hustlers", in whose distribution the Latinas Jennifer López and Cardi B stand out and which entered 6.3 million dollars. Together with other actresses such as Constance Wu, Julia Stiles or Lili Reinhart and directed by Lorene Scafaria, "Hustlers" tells the true story of a group of "striptease" dancers who created a method to defraud their clients, many of them big Wall Street investors.
Ultimately, "It: Chapter Two" earned $5.3 million for a cumulative global gross of $436.7 million. The Argentine director Andy Muschietti is once again at the forefront of the terror of "It" in a second part in which actors like James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader face off with the evil Pennywise.
