Art the Clown is kicking the Joker’s butt (at the box office.)

Art, the murderous yet somehow charming draw in the slasher sequel Terrifier 3, led the picture to domestic box office returns of over $25 million in its first week, becoming profitable almost instantly before earning back fourteen times its production budget, adding in an additional $3M in global returns.

This put the Terrifier franchise sequel, which as an independent film was not required to and has not received an MPAA rating, atop the US box office list for the week just past.

Joker: Folie à Deux just could not compete in its second week, pulling in only $18.9M domestically (and with a considerably larger budget.) The movie’s take was an 81% decline from its opening week, one of the worst drops in history for a movie in wide release. It’s considered one of the biggest comic book movie flops in history, even behind The Marvels.

Terrifier 3 has now become the 47th movie to pass the $25 million milestone at the domestic box office in 2024, and the tenth highest-grossing horror movie for this year, a list that includes Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, A Quiet Place: Day One, Alien Romulus, and the surprise hit Longlegs. And Terrifier 3 is only in its first week, so it could easily climb higher.

Considering that Joker: Folie à Deux features lovely Lady Gaga as a singing Harley Quinn and Terrifier 3 features a man getting [SPOILER!] scrotally violated by a clown with a chainsaw, it’s a little bit surprising that the film that made audiences vomit and run out of the theater is doing better. But that’s showbiz for you.