“It” has proven itself to be a box office smasher that is bigger in the proportion that it was estimated to be. This news comes after weekend figures showed a total of $123.1 million at 4,103 locations in its North American debut for New Line and Warner Brothers. This means it raked in an extra $6 million than it was expected to be. Overseas it was also a smashing success!
Top horror release and September debut
The success of the Stephen King adaptation at the box office this weekend was evident. It generated a gross of $123.1 million locally and also generated $189 million from overseas sales in 46 markets.
This makes it the largest opening ever for a horror movie and also surpasses previous movie debuts for September. All in all, this tops the weekend records for 2011’s horror opening “Paranormal Activity 3” which recorded $52.6 million and the highest September due for 2015’s “Hotel Transylvania 2” which recorded $48.5 million.
Further to this, it earned the title of being the fifth Warner Brothers movie for 2017 to land itself a position in the top 18 rankings. Its counterparts are “Wonder Woman”, “Dunkirk”, “The LEGO Batman Movie and Kong: Skull Island”. In reality, this figure of $123.1 million in North America in just one week is over a quarter of “Wonder Woman’s” total gross earnings to date.
Competitors slaughtered while the homicidal clown Entertains
The only other weekend release was “Home Again”, the comedy featuring Reese Witherspoon. “Home Again” copped the second spot for this weekend’s movies and earned a weekend gross of $9.02 million. Both pushed last weekend’s first place spot of “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” to third after it recorded a weekend gross of $4.8 million and last week’s second place spot of “Annabelle: Creation” to fourth with $4 million.
“Wind River” rounded off the top five spots with $3.2 million.
Jeff Goldstein, President of Domestic Distribution at Warner Brothers described the success, saying, “We blew past everyone’s most optimistic and aggressive projections and I think there might be room for us to grow this weekend even still. “It” is just what the industry needs.”
In 2008 when New Line was folded into Warner Brothers, both New Line and Warner Brothers agreed that the focus of New Line should be horror.
“It”, which was already being developed at Warner Brothers was then ceded to New Line and following the departure of Cary Fukunaga, the Argentine Director Andres Muschietti joined New Line. Fukunaga, it is reported, left New Line because of creative differences.
“In my mind, I was making an adaptation of the book, which I love. I was trying to make reference to a work that I love, which is the book. I really don’t need to reference the TV series,” says Muschietti. Muschietti is widely known for directing and co-writing “Mama” (2013).
Clearly, there is a lot for “It” fans to look forward to! The figures speak for themselves and so do the reviews. The great news for movie goers and “It” fans the world over is that this is only Part One. Part Two of “It” is due to be released in 2019. This means the countdown is on!
