IT BREAKS BOX-OFFICE RECORDS WHILE JUMP-STARTING US BOX OFFICE

After posting the biggest ever pre-show gross for an R-rated movie, New Line Cinema's Stephen King horror adaptation 'IT' is breaking even more box-office records, including the best opening day ever for a horror title ($51M), the highest three-day opening record weekend for the genre (estimated to be at least US$117M) and the second-highest opening for an R-rated pic (behind Deadpool‘s $132.4M). 

The horror film is now the 3rd largest opening of 2017 (behind only Beauty and the Beast and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), largest Imax opening for a movie in Sept. and for a weekend horror movie. Imax domestic 377 screens accounted for $7.2M of the total which is also the company’s best ever September opening weekend in the domestic market. Globally, IT generated another US$62M, with Imax generating $10M of that.

Warner Bros. noted also that IT out-grossed the entire prior industry record gross for a post-Labor Day weekend and lastly, the studio noted that the film was the largest opening weekend for an R-rated movie based on a book. 

“We blew past everyone’s expectations in a big way. This is the first Sunday of football and because of the weather, I think our number is more in the ballpark but we have lots of room to grow,” said Warner Bros. president domestic theatrical distribution Jeffrey Goldstein, who said they were strong everywhere and the Hispanic markets were really dominating.