It'd be like some indie film beating out a multi million dollar Hollywood production

That's what happened with The Terrifier 3. It was crowdfunded with a budget of only $2 million and had a larger opening weekend than Joker 2. Though the to-date global box office receipts shows Joker 2 has made more money overall, relative to it's budget it's yet to make a profit while Terrifier 3 exceeded it's by a factor of 9 in it's first weekend.