More people ended up watching El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie last weekend over Joker. El Camino takes place directly after the events of the Breaking Bad series finale, with Jesse Pinkman fleeing the compound where he was imprisoned and forced to cook meth. Joker on the other hand is the newest DC film distributed by Warner Bros, which takes place outside of the DC Extended Universe.
Breaking Bad went off the air in 2013 after five seasons of the show and just last year, a Breaking Bad movie was confirmed to be in development. The finale to Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the best finales in television history, but the final episode left Jesse's fate a mystery. Now that El Camino has been released, the film has gotten mostly positive reviews, with many people saying the movie delivers a satisfying ending to Jesse's storyline. Many people tuned in on October 11 when the movie began to stream on Netflix, but El Camino could have done just as well in theaters.
According to The Wrap, more people watched El Camino over Joker last weekend, meaning the Breaking Bad sequel could have beaten the supervillain movie at the box office. The data firm Nielsen Holdings reported that 6.5 million people watched El Camino last weekend. When multiplying this by the average ticket cost of $8.93, The Wrap calculates that El Camino could have made upwards of $58 million on its opening weekend. This means that El Camino would have beaten Joker at the box office, with the film only having a second weekend total of $55 million.
While El Camino was more than a success for Netflix, Joker was also a huge success for Warner Bros. The supervillain flick has received glowing reviews and made a lot of the money at the box office. Joker even earned the box office record for highest-grossing October opening ever, a record that was previously held by Venom. Joker probably won't reach $1 billion at the box office, but that doesn't take away from the success the film has seen. Even though El Camino was released on Netflix versus getting a wide theatrical release, the ratings for the movie make it clear that Breaking Bad still has a huge fan base.
El Camino did get a limited release for one week in October, but the film could have possibly earned a lot more money if it got a wide release. It's also worth mentioning that Vince Gilligan decided to stream El Camino on Netflix partly because he has previously credited the streaming service for helping his series avoid cancelation. That being said, one has to wonder if the convenience of staying at home to watch the movie aided in El Camino's viewership. Regardless of which film would have made more money at the box office, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie and Joker have both become triumphant achievements for Netflix and Warner Bros. respectively.
Source: The Wrap