To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Andres Muschietti's IT has continued its killer box office tear in its second week, and has been crowned king once again. We have all of the details below in our Top 10 chart, so check it out, and we'll analyze below
While IT faced off against a pair of newcomers in its second weekend, they proved to be no competition for the horror blockbuster. Dropping only 51.4 percent compared to its first go-round, the movie brought in an additional $60 million in the last three days, and shattered a few more records in the process. The big one that's been broken is the all-time September box office record, which is pretty insane when you consider that the film has been out for only a little over two weeks. The record previously belonged to Crocodile Dundee, which made an impressive $174.8 million after it was initially released in September 1986, but a new champion has now been crowned.
And while it didn't happen this weekend, IT will also be hitting another major milestone in the next few days. Now that the feature's total domestic gross stands at $218.7 million, it is on the verge of becoming the highest grossing R-rated horror movie of all time (the current record belongs to William Friedkin's The Exorcist, which made $232.9 million - unadjusted for inflation - back at the end of 1973). This wouldn't quite be enough to establish the Andres Muschietti blockbuster has the highest-grossing domestic title in the genre, as M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, which made $293.5 million in 1999 - but at this rate it would surprise nobody if that winds up being another crown stolen by Pennywise.
Unfortunately, the rest of the box office news isn't so exciting. The performance by Michael Cuesta's American Assassin was thankfully enough to prevent the fourth straight week of only one title making more than $10 million, but it's still hard to get excited for a $14.8 million take. The new action movie was budged at a reported $33 million, and has been eyed as the start of a new thriller franchise, but whether or not that future will play out has a big question mark attached to it now. The film didn't exactly get positive reviews, but the fact that crowds gave it a B+ CinemaScore means that the feature could grow some legs as we move through the rest of the month.
The story couldn't be more different for Darren Aronofsky's mother!, however. The movie got a mixed response from both the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals - but while critics remained mostly positive, it seems that audiences absolutely hate it. Said to be a rather unpleasant experience at the movies, mother! actually managed to earn an 'F' CinemaScore, which is far from a common feat. Ultimately it was able to make $7.5 million this weekend while out in over 2,000 theaters, but one has to wonder how long it will actually stick around in theaters. If this one has your curiosity, you might want to check it out on the big screen sooner rather than later.
With the exception of IT, new releases have left us wanting a lot more in the last few weeks, but the movie world should definitely be getting a big boost on Friday. In addition to the horror feature Friend Request, and the limited release of Battle of the Sexes, studios are providing film fans with a double dose of big titles - including Matthew Vaughn's Kingsman: The Golden Circle (expected to be a nice and profitable sequel to an original that was a big surprise on the business side), and the LEGO Ninjago Movie (which will hopefully break the terrible trend in 2017 animation that the industry has been seeing since the release of LEGO Batman in February). Be sure to come back next week to see how it all shakes out!
