Joaquin Phoenix’s ‘Joker’ Breaks October Opening Weekend Record With $93.5M Debut

Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker is off to a stellar start at the North American box office, as the Warner Bros. flick broke the October opening weekend record with a $93.5 million debut.

The R-rated Joker movie brought in $93.5 million domestically from 4,374 theaters, topping the previous record holder Venom, which opened to $80.3 million a year ago. This is the biggest opening that Warner Bros. has seen in two years. Joker also earned $140.5 million overseas for a worldwide total of $234 million after its first weekend in theaters.

With Joker, Warner Bros. is looking to tap into Scorsese classics such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, with the Joaquin Phoenix movie set in a gritty and grounded 1980s Gotham City. Todd Phillips directed the standalone piece, which is separate from the DC Extended Universe in an effort to create new and unique storylines to expand the canon.

Joaquin Phoenix is the latest actor to don the Joker makeup and costume on the big screen following the likes of Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and Jared Leto. In addition to directing Joker, Todd Phillips also wrote the movie’s script with Scott Silver, the man behind the 2002 drama 8 Mile starring Eminem.

Here is the official synopsis for Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker:

Director Todd Phillips “Joker” centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone fictional story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, who is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fractured society. A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night…but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty, Arthur makes one bad decision that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty character study.

Directed by Todd Phillips from a script he co-wrote with Scott Silver, Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Bill Camp, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Douglas Hodge, Marc Maron, Josh Pais, and Shea Whigham.

Joker is now in theaters everywhere. Stay tuned for the latest news on regarding the Joaquin Phoenix movie.

Source: THR