In the film world, there is one movie that is currently on everyone's lips: Joker. Todd Phillips' psychological thriller provided an origin story for Batman's most iconic villain, with a story that didn't take direct inspiration from the comics. The movie was the subject of some controversy ahead of its release, while simultaneously being praised for its cinematography and Joaquin Phoenix's performance. And now it's had an effect on another aspect of life: porn searches.
The pop culture lexicon regularly has an effect on the pornography business, and how consumers search and find content. Plenty of major blockbusters have gotten porn parodies throughout the years, directly spoofing major releases like Justice League. And it turns out that the release of Todd Phillips' Joker has affected the type of clips being sought after on websites like Pornhub. That's right, people are searching for Joker porn.
This news come to us from Pornhub itself, which revealed how this past weekend's search results were influenced by the release of Joker. It seems that moviegoers left theaters, and promptly searched for pornography content containing Joker. According to Pornhub, searches containing “Joker” reached 741K in just four days. Furthermore, the searches had their biggest peak of 291K on October 6th. That's two days after the movie premiered in theaters, presumably allowing cinephiles to snag a ticket and head to a screening.
These numbers might not be surprising, considering just how many people went to theaters to see Joker on opening weekend. While the movie was always expected to have a strong box office performance, it performed even better than we thought, breaking records in the process. Joker ultimately made a whopping 93.5 million during its first few days in theaters. And given how the movie has continued to dominate the news cycle, I'm sure the money is going to keep coming in during the next few weeks.
This isn't the first time Pornhub has seen a bump in searches after the release of a DC blockbuster. The popular website also saw a ton of Harley Quinn searches following the release of David Ayer's Suicide Squad. And that particular trend hasn't slowed down in the years since Margot Robbie's femme fatale arrived on screen. In fact, Pornhub revealed Harley was searched a 10 million times in 2018 alone. I have to wonder what Mr. J would say about that.
Related: Joker's Ambiguity: 4 Questions We Have After Seeing The New DC Movie
But while Suicide Squad was a fun (albeit somewhat disappointing) romp, Joker is a far more serious outing in theaters. The movie is dark and unsettling, as moviegoers watch how Arthur Fleck descends into madness and murder. As such, it is a decidedly less sexy movie to get porn inspiration from. But that clearly hasn't stopped people, as pop culture and sexuality collide through Joker related searches.
Joker is in theaters now, and continues to be a hot topic as the days go by. In the meantime, be sure to check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
