Somehow director Todd Phillips’ Joker managed to become the top-grossing R-rated movie of all time without anyone getting injured or killed.
What’s more, Joker became the top-grossing R-Rated movie of all time without anyone being injured or killed, even though it certainly appeared as though every corporate media outlet in the world was hoping for and even encouraging violence.
With a $790 million worldwide gross, Joker scooted past Deadpool 2’s record of $785 million set just last year, to become the biggest R-rated movie ever produced.
Some caveats…
1) Joker is still going pretty strong, so these numbers will climb over the coming weeks.
2) These numbers do not account for inflation, and if you count for inflation, the domestic take alone for 1973’s The Exorcist ($1 billion), is still the Big Daddy of R-Rated movies.
3) At the domestic box office, the top R-rated movie is still director Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ’s — $370 million without inflation, $530 million with.
In fact, domestically, not even counting for inflation, Joker still has not surpassed The Hangover ($277 million — also directed by Phillips) and Matrix Reloaded ($281 million), although it will.
Domestically, Joker will probably not pass Deadpool 2 ($324 million) and It ($327 million), and definitely won’t pass American Sniper ($350 million), Deadpool ($363 million), and The Passion.
Nevertheless, not only is Joker a monster hit that will earn a half billion — with a “B” — dollars in profit for Warner Bros., it deserves to. Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix and everyone involved told a mesmerizing, highly original, and unforgettable story that could not be denied, even in the face of a ton of bigoted and racist hot takes that used the movie to slander and smear single, white men; that used the movie to try and provoke an act of violence in a theater playing Joker, so that this act of violence could be used as an excuse to launch another round of hot takes slandering and smearing single, white men.
But how big of a failure was this…?
To begin with, after four weekends in release, Joker will probably be number-one again at the domestic box office this weekend.
And then there’s the math…
For simplicity sake, let’s assume Joker will reach a worldwide gross of $900 million, which is certainly possible. Further, let’s assume the average worldwide ticket price is $9, even though it is probably lower. What that means is that Joker has sold over 100 million admissions. Think about that…
Figure that with repeat customers (I saw it twice), that over 75 million different people paid to see Joker, sat in a darkened theater to watch a movie the experts assured us would provoke catastrophic violence, that the elite practically begged for violence to occur so they could prove a political point, and not one drop of blood was lost, not one punch thrown, not one knife brandished, not once incident of violence.
And we know this failure was not due to a lack of scrutiny. How do we know that? The fact that a couple of idiots were arrested at a Joker screening for smoking cigarettes and “causing loud noises” made the news.
Imagine the CNN “Breaking News” headlines if Brett Kavanaugh had been caught looking at his phone at a Joker screening…
If that wasn’t silly enough, a verbal argument broke out between two customers at an overseas screening, and it made international news.
Do you have any idea how many arguments I’ve seen break out in movie theaters? I’ve gotten in a couple myself. I’ve seen at least three fistfights, and if you want to count the drive-in, I’ve been in one (and lost horribly).
So what you have here is the entire worldwide media on alert for any kind of teensy-weensy-little-itty-bitty-microscopic Joker story they can find, and this is all they got.
Pathetic.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.