Joker, a movie we all knew would make large sums of money, has been confirmed to have already done a bit of that during its Thursday preview run.
The Joaquin Phoenix-starring film from director Todd Phillips made $13.3 million at the Thursday box office, perDeadline. This bests the October preview record previously held by Venom, which did $10 million in Thursday preview dollars in October 2018.
As Deadline pointed out in their initial report on Thursday's numbers, there is a one hour showtime-kickoff difference when comparing the two films, as Venom began its Thursday previews last year at 5 p.m. Joker, meanwhile, started up the festivities at 4 p.m.
Internationally, the numbers are equally as impressive, with the total through Thursday at $24.6 million in 47 markets. As it stands now, international box office is on its way to an opening weekend of more than $80 million.
"I literally described to Joaquin at one point in those three months as like, 'Look at this as a way to sneak a real movie in the studio system under the guise of a comic book film,'" Phillips recently told The Wrap of his intentions for the film, which drew comparisons to classics like Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy upon the release of teaser images and trailers earlier this year.
This post will be updated with additional box office stats in the coming days.
