In a triumph, nobody saw coming, after 5 weeks in cinemas, Joker has grossed $US 313.4 million in North America and $US 645.4 outside of North America to bring its global cume to a staggering $US 958.8 million. Here’s what’s interesting. Most of the time, box office talk revolves around gross profit and rarely around its revenue in relation to its budget. But this time we have to talk about it.
The R-rated Todd Phillips comic book movie starring Joaquin Phoenix grossed 15.3X its production budget of $US 62.5 million, officially making it the most profitable comic book movie (when comparing budget to global gross) in history. To put things into perspective, Avengers: Endgame’s $US 2.79 billion gross is 7.8X its $US 356 million production budget.
Here’s a list of most profitable comic book movies of all time:
- Joker
- The Mask ($US 351 million gross vs $US 23 million budget — 15.2X)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ($US 200 million vs US$ 13.5 million — 14.8X).
- Deadpool ($US 783 million vs $US 58 million — 13.5X)
- Tim Burton’s Batman ($US 411 million gross vs $US 35 million budget — 11.7X)
- Venom ($US 854 million gross vs $US 90 million budget — 9.4X)
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Keep in mind that Joker achieved this without even releasing in China (it probably will not be released in the country). Apart from being the most profitable comic book movie of all time, Joker is also the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, worldwide
The record was held for more than a decade by 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded ($US 742 million) until Deadpool ($US 782.6 million) and Deadpool 2 ($US 785 million) broke the record in 2016 and 2018 respectively. But Joker has smashed that milestone to pieces, having already overcome it by about $US 173 million. The best part is, Joker isn’t even nearing the end of its run just yet.
The next milestone that Joker has its eyes set on, as far as box office is concerned, is the $US 1 billion club. If it does cross the mark, it will be the cheapest film in history to do so, but that’s an article for another day.
Joker is currently playing in Malaysian cinemas.
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