The film adaptation of Stephen King’s It broke box office records this weekend to the tune of $117 million, the largest September opening and the largest opening for a horror film according to Box Office Mojo. It left the competition far behind, single-handedly bringing some lift to a fairly flat summer box office. Audiences gave it an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and a B+ on CinemaScore. The two hour and fifteen-minute R-rated film from Warner Bros and New Line centers on a group of teenagers who stumble across unspeakable horrors in their town of Derry, Maine. Bill Skarsgård owns the screen in the character of the malevolent clown, Pennywise.
Open Road’s rom-com Home Again starring Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon also debuted this weekend in a distant second place, bringing in $9 million. Writer-director Hallie Meyers-Shyer, in her feature film debut, picks up the baton from mother and writer-director, Nancy Meyers, who gave us other rom-com gems such as It’s Complicated, The Holiday, and Something’s Gotta Give. See our review here.
The buddy action comedy The Hitman’s Bodyguard, starring Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson, which is in its fourth week of release, came in third with $4.85 million, bringing its total to close to $65 million. See our review here.
Another horror film from Warner Bros. and New Line, Annabelle: Creation, came in fourth with $4 million. The David F. Sandberg feature is a prequel to 2014’s Annabelle and the fourth installment in The Conjuring series. The story follows a dollmaker and his wife, a nun, and the dollmaker’s supernaturally possessed creation, Annabelle.
Rounding out the top five was writer-director Taylor Sheridan’s critically acclaimed drama Wind River, starring two-time Oscar-nominated actor Jeremy Renner, which grossed $3.2 million this weekend, for a total of $25 million over the last six weeks. Check out our review here.
The top ten films in the box office this weekend are:
1. IT $117,150,000
2. HOME AGAIN $9,028,222
3. THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD $4,850,000
4. ANNABELLE: CREATION $4,000,000
5. WIND RIVER $3,210,200
6. LEAP! $2,500,100
7. SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING $2,015,000
8. DUNKIRK $1,950,000
9. LOGAN LUCKY $1,826,425
10. THE EMOJI MOVIE $1,060,000