The Joker is laughing all the way to the bank.

The new Joker film, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the Clown Prince of Crime, shattered the record for the biggest opening weekend in box office history for an October release. According to box office analyst Gitesh Pandya, the movie grossed an estimated — and impressive — $93.5 million in its debut in theaters. That’s bigger than every other 2018 and 2019 DC Comics movies including Shazam ($53.5 million) and Aquaman ($67.8 million). It’s almost as much as Justice League ($93.8 million), which had a whole team of superheroes and an exponentially larger budget. Joker just has the Joker, and it nearly outgrossed it in its opening weekend. (If word of mouth is strong, it will almost certainly pass it at the domestic box office eventually.)

Via Box Office Mojo, here is the previous top five October opening weekends. Venom was the previous record holder with $80.2 million. Joker breezed past that number:

  1. Venom - $80.2 million
  2. Halloween - $76.2 million
  3. Gravity - $55.7 million
  4. The Martian - $54.3 million
  5. Paranormal Activity 3 - $52.5 million

$93.5 million also makes Joker the fourth biggest opening ever for an R-rated movie behind the two Deadpools and the first It. For a dark, bleak character study of a super-villain — without a role for Batman! — this is probably as good as this kind of movie could do. Will Warner Bros. try to make a sequel next?

Gallery — The Biggest Second Weekends in Box Office History:

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