In case you’ve been living under a rock, this is the weekend where It opens. The trailer set youtube on fire earlier this year, and smashed records for how many views it got in such a short period of time. The buzz on this film has been surprisingly high, considering it’s a horror film and the tracking for this is off the charts. A lot of the predictions hindered around “is it any good?” and it turns out that, yes, it is very good. While I personally haven’t seen it, a lot of critics I trust say this film is everything they’ve wanted in an It film, and the word of mouth in general has been very strong. Currently it has a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, and just needs a few more reviews to become “certified fresh”. For those wanting more specific breakdowns, out of 40 reviews, only one has been negative. That’s not a bad feat at all.
Tracking for this has been high for weeks. At first, it was 50 million. Then people started talking about 60M. Could it go as high as 60M? At the time, that was crazy sauce. Now, people are saying 70M is the ceiling for It. Let’s talk about how incredibly rare that is. If It were to gross 70M, it would be a phenomenon. Not just a box office hit, but a Hailey’s Comet of box office hits. First off, the current record holder for September is Hotel Transylvania 2 at 48.4M. In fact, the highest opener in October is 55.7M. So, it would be the highest grossing opener in an entire two month span.
At 70M, it would be the 9th highest grossing R rated opener of all time. Within it’s genre, it would be the highest opening horror remake of all time, beating the Friday the 13th remake (40.5M). Hell, at 70M it would instantly be the 6th highest grossing horror remake of all time. And as you might have guessed, 70M is actually enough to make it the top horror opener, PG-13 or otherwise, beating such powerhouses like Paranormal Activity 3 (52.5M). And the best part? The film was made for just 35M. This is a perfect example of how to make a good film, for a respectable budget, and get butts in seats through a perfect marketing campaign. It is unusual for a film this gory and violent to be tracking so high, but It already has a build in fanbase because of the novel.
It’s not opening alone. It has competition from Home Again, the Reese Witherspoon comedy which is currently disappointing critics. However, this comedy is very much “on brand” for Witherspoon, and I think her fans will still show up at least a little for her. There’s also Charlie Sheen’s bewildering 9/11 drama, but I literally can’t take that film seriously. If you’re planning to see 9/11 this weekend… why?
And honestly, It is going to spend two weeks at #1. The films opening next weekend are American Assassin, Mother!, and All I See Is You. I can’t see any of those films making more than 15M (at best), and It is going to make at least 30M in week two. It will get toppled in week three by both the Kingsman sequel and Ninjago, each tracking with around 40M right now.
1) It- 65M Weekend, 65M Total
2) Home Again- 12M Weekend, 12M Total
3) The Hitman’s Bodyguard- 5M Weekend, 63M Total
4) Wind River-5M Weekend, 26M Total
5) Annabelle Creation- 3.5M Weekend, 94M Total
6) Leap- 3M Weekend, 15M Total
7) Logan Lucky- 2.5M Weekend, 25M Total
8) Dunkirk- 2.5M Weekend, 182M Total
9) Spider-Man Homecoming- 2M Weekend, 327M Total
10) Despicable Me 3- 1.5M Weekend, 260M Total
