“It” Feasts on Competition for Huge Second Weekend

By Kip Mooney • On • In Weekend Box Office Report Weekend Box Office Report 0

BOX OFFICE REPORT

September 15-17, 2017

(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 5

It $60.0 million
American Assassin  $14.8 million
mother! $7.5 million
Home Again  $5.3 million
The Hitman's Bodyguard  $3.5 million

After a record-setting debut, It is holding on better than most horror movies and most blockbusters in its second weekend. Falling just over 51 percent, the Stephen King adaptation earned an estimated $60 million. That would be the third-biggest second weekend of the year, just behind two of the year's top three films (Beauty and the Beast and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2). It's already the eighth biggest movie of 2017, and could easily be in the top five by the end of next weekend. Even though it will face some serious competition next week, it's definitely going to top $300 million, making it the only horror movie to ever reach that milestone.

American Assassin did the best of the new films, but with only $14.8 million, it's highly unlikely this is the start of the new franchise Lionsgate was hoping to launch. (There are currently 16 books featuring lead character Mitch Rapp.) But that was nearly double what mother! made, despite the star power of Jennifer Lawrence, as well as Oscar winner Javier Bardem and nominees Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer. It also earned the rare F from CinemaScore, meaning nearly all the word-of-mouth will be negative. (There's already a sharp divide in reactions on social media.)

Home Again slid to fourth place, but it's already earned more than its budget. Plus, it's the type of movie that's likely to do extremely well on video, cable and streaming. The Hitman's Bodyguard hung around to finish in fifth place. It's now topped $70 million and should finish higher than big-budget flops like The Mummy and Alien: Covenant.

Outside the top 5:

  • This Weekend's Indie Champ: Brad's Status, the second movie from Annapurna Pictures' distribution arm. The dramedy about Ben Stiller's Brad having a mid-life crisis averaged $25,045 on four screens.
  • Beach Rats, the acclaimed coming-of-age story set in New York's bro-y beach community, expanded to 67 screens in its fourth weekend. It nearly reached the top 20 and should continue to grow.
  • Believe it or not, the biggest live-action comedy of the year is Girls Trip. Despite boasting fewer A-list stars than other raunchy comedies that opened this year, it debuted and held strongly, taking in more than $114 million to date.

Next week:

Kingsman: The Golden Circle faces off against The LEGO Ninjago Movie. It will be a photo finish, especially if people are still going to see It in near-record numbers. But I think the animated movie takes it, especially since there hasn't been a biggish animated movie since the dreaded Emoji Movie. That should translate to about $50 million for that one (below both the LEGO Movie and the LEGO Batman Movie) and $40 million for the Kingsman sequel (a bit above The Secret Service).

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.

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