Box Office: 'It: Chapter Two' Balloons to $91M Debut
While Warner Bros. and New Line’s It: Chapter Two won’t come anywhere near the splash made by 2017’s first chapter of the series, a $91 million opening is enough to rank it as the second biggest horror film opening ever.
Taking yet another bite at the It apple, the newest adaptation of Stephen King’s classic horror story led the box office for the second weekend of September, but only coming in a tad higher than the studio’s expectations of an up to $90 million opening. The weekend score also capped a big $37.4 million opening day on Friday.
Chapter Two’s take, though, was nowhere near the massive $123 million earned by the previous film back in 2017. However, it is yards better than the other top horror film, 2018’s Halloween, which saw a $76 million opening weekend.
The newest It may be leading the box office, but it did not wow reviewers. The universal opinion is that Chapter Two lacks the emotional punch of its previous film, but that it is good enough to sit through, especially with its hefty run time of more than two and a half hours.
The rest of the top five for the September 6 weekend is made up of summer holdovers.
In second place, Lionsgate’s Gerard Butler action flick, Angel Has Fallen, pulled in another $6 million bringing its domestic balance to $53 million thus far. The studios now estimate that the film will earn more than $62 million for its first run in theaters, exceeding the second film of the Fallen trilogy, London Has Fallen.
In third place and with its fourth weekend in theaters, Universal’s coming of age comedy, Good Boys, added another $5.4 million to its coffers bringing its domestic total to more than $67 million.
Still roaring in theaters, Disney’s latest edition of The Lion King hung in the top five with a fourth-place finish this weekend. King earned $4.6 million in this second weekend of September, giving the film a take of more than $529 million thus far during its run. Most industry watchers feel that this may be the last weekend for the film to stick in the top five.
Finally, in fifth place comes Sony and AFFIRM’s Christian-themed Overcomer, which just beat out Universal’s Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw by earning $3.7 million to H&S’s $3.6 million.
The fifth place finish for the religious film brought its total domestic earnings to nearly $25 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
Meanwhile, Universal’s Hobbs & Shaw now sits at about $164 million at home and has topped the $700 million with its international box office cume. Oddly enough, despite joining the $700 million club, the action pic has the lowest domestic box office of any of the other $700 million plus blockbusters, Forbes reported.
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