28. Movie Money 11/09/2017: It Wins Big

Ladies and gentlemen rejoice, for the box office has been saved! It seems Pennywise the clown used his powers of allurement on the audiences this weekend as the Stephen King adaptation took home $123.4m domestically, and a worldwide opening of $189m. That's gargantuan for a horror movie, an R rated movie, a September release, and just a fall release in general. No one could have predicted that the film would be such a monster at the box office when it was announced that a remake of a cult 1990s miniseries would be hitting theatres.

Seems like everyone wanted to float with the clown this weekend. 

'IT' will no doubt continue to dominate the box office in the weeks to come but it won't be as easy as it was this week. The competition this past weekend was practically nonexistent with its most threatening rival being Reese Witherspoon's 'Home Again' which brought in $8.5m at #2. #3 went to 'Hitman's Bodyguard with $4.8m, and just barely beat out 'Annabelle Creation' by $800k. 'Wind River' took the #5 spot and has made a comfortable $25m gross, which is more than enough for a film that cost $11m to make. 

That means that 75% of the box office went to 'It', with numbers that were more than double the combined total of last weeks top 5, at $42.8m. With a budget of $35m, 'It' is already one of the best successes of the year, and will only grow. Audience reactions and critical reception have all been good, and word of mouth, plus an absolutely stellar marketing campaign, will leave 'It' to float in the top 5 for many weeks to come. 

Here's the podcast discussion where I give my mini review of 'IT'. The full review can be seen here.

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