Box Office: 'Joker 2' Plunges Record 89% on Friday as 'Apprentice' Bombs

Both the Donald Trump biopic and 'Saturday Night' are proving to be the sort of media-friendly releases that are far more written about than actually seen.

In non-Terrifier 3 Friday box office, there will be no dawn of Fleck. Joker: Folie a Deux earned just $2.2 million on day eight, dropping 89% from its $20 million opening day gross. That’s a more significant second-Friday drop than the likes of Batman v Superman, Morbius and The Marvels. Among remotely “big” openers, that percentage tumble is behind only High School Musical 3: Senior Year.

That Disney musical threequel had its second Friday fall on Halloween night. It thus fell 90% on day eight but recovered for a “mere” 64% drop from a $42 million opening weekend. Even the 2009 Friday the 13th remake fell “just” 85% on its second Friday despite opening on Friday, February 13. The Joaquin Phoenix/Lady Gaga comic book sequel is playing pretty close to that stunningly frontloaded horror flick. The “Jason grows pot and takes hostages, I guess” revamp opened with $40 million over the Fri-Sun portion of a $43 million President’s Day weekend. It toppled a record (for a “big” film) 80% in weekend two to top out at $65 million domestic.

Todd Phillips’ $190 million melodrama will earn around $6.9 million (-82%) in weekend two for a $51.4 million ten-day total. That would be a record second-weekend drop for any “big” movie, superhero flick or otherwise. We’re now looking at an over/under $60 million domestic total for a follow-up to a film that earned $336 million domestically. That would represent an 82% decline. Even Alice Through the Looking Glass held 23% of its predecessor’s $334 million domestic total. This is getting into Mannequin 2: On the Move and The Beastmaster 2 territory.