‘It’ opens with record $117.2 mln worldwide

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Stephen King wrote "It". Warner Bros. and New Line made "It". And audiences seem to love "It".

The Stephen King adaptation from New Line and Warner Bros. shattered records over the weekend earning 117.2 million US dollars from 4,103 locations according to studio estimates on Sunday.

Not only is “It” now the largest ever opening for a horror movie and the largest September opening of all time, the film more than doubled the earnings of the previous record holders. Before this weekend, “Paranormal Activity 3" had the biggest horror opening with 52.6 million US dollars from 2011, and the highest September debut was “Hotel Transylvania 2′s” 48.5 million US dollars in 2015.

A still image from "It". /Warner Bros. picture via AP

“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,” said Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros. president of domestic distribution.

Goldstein said he was conservative with Sunday projections due to the confounding factors of the film’s R-rating, the popularity of late night showings, the beginning of football season and Hurricane Irma.

Regardless of whether there is an uptick when final numbers are reported Monday, the success of “It” is still astounding, especially considering that the project from director Andy Muschietti cost only 35 million US dollars to produce.

Critics and audiences were on the same page, too. The film has a fresh 86-percent Rotten Tomatoes score, and audiences, who were 65 percent over age 25, gave “It” a B+ CinemaScore.

The world premiere of "It" on September 5, 2017 at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California. /AFP Photo

Starring Bill Skarsgard as the homicidal clown Pennywise, “It” is the first of a planned two-part series. The second is slated to come out in the third quarter of 2019.

“It” is just the latest example of a film that defies old box office logic about which timeframes work for tent-pole movies. Before “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, no December movie had ever opened over $100 million, for instance, and the same went for the month of February until “Deadpool” proved that to be antiquated thinking as well.

The success of “It” also comes after an underperforming summer movie going season that left the year to date box office down 6.5 percent from last year. Now, with the “It” factor, the year is down only 5.5 percent.

Source(s): AP ,AFP