Joker Set to Become Highest-Grossing R-Rated Release of All Time

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Joker Set to Become Highest-Grossing R-Rated Release of All Time

Todd Phillips’ Joker is set to surpass Deadpool as the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time (without factoring in inflation) at the global box office, THR reports.

Deadpool set the record with $783 million in worldwide ticket sales back in 2016. Coming off its third successful weekend for an astounding global gross of $737.5 million, Joker is on pace to steal that honor from the Marvel flick.

From this past Friday to Sunday, Joker hauled in $29.2 million for a North American total of $247 million. For the same period overseas, the film brought in $77.9 million for a global total of $490.3 million. Joker is thus the fourth-best international showing of all time for a DC film behind Aquaman ($811.8 million), The Dark Knight Rises ($636.3 million) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($537 million).

Joker was hit with possible box-office obstacles previously: There was controversy surrounding the film’s possible glorification of a disturbed villain that lead to it not being screened at the Cinemark Aurora theater where the 2012 shooting at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises took place. Joker is also the first R-rated live-action Batman movie, which of course deters a large demographic of viewers from seeing the film, as opposed to one with a PG-13 rating. Both of these factors seemingly had no detrimental effect on Joker’s box office performance, as it is expected to close out its run with $900 million globally, with possibilities of reaching $1 billion.

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