I never would’ve thunk it.
Warner Bros. has announced that JOKER has passed the $900 million mark worldwide and is now the #1 R-rated film at the box off of all-time.
Furthermore, it’s now the #13-ranked comic book movie (not adjusted for inflation), and it’s the #4 DC movie of all-time behind AQUAMAN ($1.14 billion), THE DARK KNIGHT RISES ($1.08 billion), and THE DARK KNIGHT ($1 billion), again unadjusted.
Back to I never would’ve thunk it, I always thought JOKER would do relatively well, but I did not believe it would make this much and possibly hit the billion-dollar mark.
This is awesome!
Not only is it awesome for Warner Bros., DC Comics movies, and the Batman brand (more on that in a second), but it’s also awesome for the comic book/superhero genre. Here’s hoping that Warner Bros./DC — and hell, even Disney/Marvel Films — takes more chances on films like this one in the future. As THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY, LOGAN, and now JOKER have proven, a “comic book movie” doesn’t have to be mindless popcorn fluff.
JOKER also shows that comic book movies can be “dark” and still do well at the box office. As long as the film is good — and JOKER is great in my opinion — folks will go to the theater to see them.
RELATED: JOKER Film Review by Bill “Jett” Ramey
Most importantly to me as a lifelong Batman fan and someone who has spent 21+ years running a Batman website, JOKER‘s success has shown that the BATMAN brand is still strong as hell. In fact, I’d say it’s the strongest out of all the comic book superheroes/characters with only Spider-Man giving him a run for his money. Yes, The Joker is probably one of the greatest literary villains in history, but he’s still a Batman character.
What I’ve been getting to is that there’s no need to worry about Batman on film oversaturation with THE BATMAN on the horizon. Yes, Batman showed up on the big screen two times (three if you count the cameo in SUICIDE SQUAD) here recently in BATMAN v SUPERMAN (2016) and JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017), but overall, no one cares about those movies.
A blip on the Batman on film screen.
As long as Matt Reeves, Robert Pattinson and company deliver, we’ll be looking at the fourth $1 billion-plus Batman movie. – Bill “Jett” Ramey
