Joker is the most profitable comic book movie of all time

When it comes to profitability, it’s good to be bad, as Joker has now officially become the most profitable comic book film of all time, according to Playlist. The Joaquin Phoenix-headlined take on the classic Batman villain is also the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, proving that not all comic book films need truck loads of CGI and sprawling casts to strike a nerve with audiences.

Directed by Todd Phillips (The Hangover, Old School), the film arrived in theaters this past October amid a flurry of controversy, with former Joker Jared Leto reportedly even trying to kill the film before it could get made. A big part of the reason Joker has been so profitable is because of how comparatively little it cost to make: just $62.5 million with a $957 million return. That means it made back its budget 15 times over and then some. By comparison, the highest-grossing film of all time, Avengers: Endgame, cost a whopping $356 million to make, and brought in nearly $3 billion at the global box office. To match Joker’s budget multiplier, it would have had to make north of $5 billion.

Focusing on the origins of the iconic character, Joker featured a powerful performance from Phoenix with little to no special effects. The previous holder of most profitable comic book film, believe it or not, was Jim Carrey’s The Mask, which raked in $351 million against a budget of $23 million.

When you take away the comic book caveat however, horror movies dominate the profitability space. Paranormal Activity, which was made for a paltry $450,000 in 2007, brought home over $89 million at the box office, with a return on investment of over 19,749 percent.

Your move, Joker 2.

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