No Clowning Around: ‘It: Chapter Two’ To Set Fall On Fire With $120M+ Opening On Par With First Pic
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New Line’s It: Chapter Two, the sequel to the biggest horror film of all time, is looking at a domestic opening similar to the 2017 pic’s $123.4 million first frame.
We hear in regards to demos the pic is comping to the first title in the series, Stephen King’s $700M-grossing It, and 20th Century Fox’s Logan ($88.4M), but It: Chapter Two is far better than the R-rated Wolverine movie in first choice. Some tracking services have the sequel’s opening as low as $95M, which by the way, ain’t too shabby for September. In fact, it would be the second-best opening for the month of all time. Nothing to cry about.
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The sequel, also directed by Andy Muschietti, follows the Loser Club as adults as they grapple with a re-haunting by that evil mascara man, Pennywise. It’s domestic opening also beats any pic that ever opened in October as well (the best being Sony’s Venom last year at $80.2M).
The first It didn’t play like a genre film pulling in just older guys, but rather a tentpole, with males over 25 turning out at 31% per PostTrak, females under 25 (24%), males under 25 (23%) and females 25+ (23%). Who wouldn’t want those quads? CinemaScore showed a 51-49 split between females and males with 65% over 25 and 69% of the crowd coming out because it was a King horror movie.
For quite some time, Warners has tapped that weekend following Labor Day, looking to expand the audience. The frame was long believed to be a dead zone. Warners knocked on the post-Labor Day period with 2011’s Contagion ($22.4M opening), 2016’s Sully ($35M), then struck oil with It back in 2017. The Burbank, CA-based studio proved again the power of post-Labor Day last year with The Conjuring spinoff The Nun, which posted the franchise’s best opening ever, and current second-best for September, with $53.8M. Now Warners is looking to own the post-Labor Day space for the future. Next September, we have The Conjuring 3.
If you live in Los Angeles, and are hankering to get your clown scare, head over to the The Derry Canal Days Festival and Funhouse at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, which opened today and will run through September 8. It’s billed as a “40-minute spine tingling experience” featuring more than 10 immersive and terrifying interactive spaces giving fans a look into It: Chapter Two.
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