It: Chapter One ($671,678,434)

UltimateMarvel wrote:
That's a scary trailer. I was never afraid of clowns but this is too much. I would never watch this movie in theaters.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Damn! I heard this guy eats children. Did he kill Georgie or did he eat him?

joey con carne wrote:The trailer didn't show too much of Pennywise's interactions with the kids. This one just seems a lot more "serious" scary. Pennywise from the TV movie series scared the hell out of me because he was always acting a little bit silly at first and then toward the end of whatever he's saying he would slowly start getting more and more scary. I always loved that. This new Pennywise seems like he's more "regular scary" instead of "silly but terrifying".

What I just wrote probably doesn't mean much to you guys but in my head, it makes perfect sense.

Within 24 hours of its CinemaCon debut on Wednesday, the trailer for New Line/Warner Bros. upcoming Stephen King feature adaptation It smashed global traffic records with 197 million views, blowing past the previous record of 139M set by Universal’s The Fate of the Furious back in December.

New Line released the trailer for the Andres Muschietti-directed horror film in English along with 30 localized versions starting at 9 AM Wednesday (watch it here). Of its 197M global views, more than 81M views and over 1.8M shares are from the U.S. Facebook instances alone. Within hours after its release, the It trailer became a viral sensation, trending across Facebook and Twitter and rising to the top of the Reddit Homepage with 30K-plus “up” votes in four hours. The video quickly rose to the No. 1 position on YouTube’s trending videos and remained there throughout the day.

The trailer helped It trend globally on Twitter with trends for It, It Movie, Pennywise and the Red Balloon Emoji all appearing.

Based on the 1986 novel by King, It follows seven children who are terrorized by the eponymous being, who exploits the fears and phobias of its victims in order to disguise itself while hunting its prey. It generally appears as a clown, Pennywise, in order to lure young children.

It opens on September 8, the weekend after Labor Day — which has been a hotbed for Warner Bros in the past with the opening of Clint Eastwood’s Sully ($35M) and the Steven Soderbergh thriller Contagion ($22.4M). The pic starring Bill Skarsgård is produced by Dan Lin, Roy Lee, David Katzenberg, Seth Grahame-Smith and Barbara Muschietti.

In New Line Cinema’s IT, in theaters September 8, 2017, a group of young kids face their biggest fears when they seek answers to the disappearance of children in their hometown of Derry, Maine. They square off against an evil clown named Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård), whose history of murder and violence dates back for centuries.

The kids in peril, the Losers’ Club, include Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs and Jeremy Ray Taylor.

The adaptation of Stephen King’s novel is too much for one movie, which is why it has been split in two. In the recent interview with Variety, director Andy Muschietti shared plans for the sequel, while also revealing that it will flashback to the first film.

“We are doing that [two films],” explained Muschietti. “We’ll probably have a script for the second part in January. Ideally, we would start prep in March. Part one is only about the kids. Part two is about these characters 30 years later as adults, with flashbacks to 1989 when they were kids.”

Does this mean the entire cast could be returning? Unless IT flops hard this coming fall (spoiler: it won’t), Muschietti confirms that work on the sequel is already well underway. If cameras were to go up in March the sequel could be in theaters as early as summer 2019, which gives us two years to speculate what’s coming next.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Can't wait to watch this movie on mute.

Tyger wrote:His mom?

UltimateMarvel wrote:DAMN! Shots fired. lol No, it's gonna be fun watching this movie. I won't go to the theater though, that I can promise you.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Wylde, I dare you to go watch this in theaters.  

I'm gonna be floating out of my chair watching this movie.

According to the British Board of Film Classification, IT will clock in at 135 minutes, or two hours and fifteen minutes for the chronologically challenged. That comes as good news for fans of the source novel and its 1,138 or so pages, roughly half of which will be covered in this first outing. The run-time gives plenty of big-screen real estate to establish the strong personalities of The Losers and develop the lifelong relationships that form among them. That’s a necessity not only for the story told in this part but for the inevitable sequel that picks back up with the Losers as adults.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Wylde, I dare you to go watch this in theaters.  

I'm gonna be floating out of my chair watching this movie.

Rusty wrote:

UltimateMarvel wrote:Wylde, I dare you to go watch this in theaters.  

I'm gonna be floating out of my chair watching this movie.

I think I will. A nice dark theatre I'll probably have all to myself.

Tyger wrote:And it's half a movie

Rusty wrote:It's not half a movie. It's one of two movies

Lord of the Rings wasn't one third of a movie. It was 1 of 3

The strength of the Stephen King brand just proved itself as the R-rated It‘s Thursday showings delightfully horrified crowds, grabbing hold of $13.5M in previews that began at 7 PM. That means it nabbed the largest horror pre-show gross ever, the largest R-rated preview as well as the largest Sept. preview and the biggest ever for a movie based on a a Stephen King book. And no surprise as it was in 3,500 theaters which is basically the same number of theaters Deadpool had for its full weekend release. So Warner Bros. knew what they were doing here and basically began It‘s weekend run on a Thursday. Gotta ask, at what point is it no longer a ‘preview’?

It — which rolls out to 4,103 theaters today — could run past $90M and some trackers are looking at $100M. Regardless, the box office that has been limping along is now is supercharging September as It will, indeed, continue to break records.

Deadpool, which was released Feb. 15, 2016, had a preview of $12.7M and ended its three-day weekend with $132.4M in its 3,558 theaters. But Deadpool also opened during the President’s weekend holiday. The R-rated superhero film from Fox also had the benefit of 374 Imax and 475 PLF screens.

It opened in select international Imax theaters already (basically opening day and date stateside). Stephen King’s It opens in a total of 615 Imax openings globally and of those screen 389 are playing the horror film domestically.

To put that It‘s preview number in perspective, Stephen King’s The Green Mile grossed $18M in its three-day weekend in 1999 and The Dark Tower just opened to $19M. Friday morning takes are already approaching the full FSS of Green Mile, and we have yet to really see the horror audiences packed into audience late tonight.

It is releasing outside of any holiday weekend, was not a superhero film and had literally no stars to promote which makes its preview results all the more impressive for New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Genre audiences usually come out for preview audiences and the horror audiences traditionally love their Friday late night moviegoing so we’re expecting a very, very strong night.

We are also going to have many markets underwater from Hurricane Irma after Hurricane Harvey already wrecked Houston with theaters closed or closing right and left.

Props also to It director Andy Muschietti (Mama), who if readers remember, split over creative differences on The Mummy years ago. Maybe The Mummy execs should have listened to him? Just sayin’.

In terms of other comps, Jordan Peele’s Get Out grossed $1.8M at 2,240 theaters from showtimes starting at 7 PM and M. Night Shyamalan’s Split grabbed $2M in Thursday night previews in 2,295 theaters. However, both bowed early in the year. Get Out went onto to gross $33.3M for its three-day opening weekend when it bowed in February of this year to end its domestic run with $175.4M and a global take of $252.4M. Split scared up a FSS of $40M before ending its run at $138.1M; globally it nabbed $276.9M.

20th Century Fox’s Logan pocketed a big $9.5M in its previews to chalk up the third highest for an R-rated preview after record holder Deadpool ($12.7M) and The Hangover Part II ($10.4M from midnight shows). Logan was released in early March and after that strong preview it ended up trampling all competition to take No. 1 for with an $88.4M debut weekend.

The Hangover Part II was released during Memorial Day by Warner Bros. in 2011 and took in a total gross of$85.9M in its three day.

Let’s face it, Stephen King is the brand that has been pushing audiences to this. That, and a smart marketing campaign.

It is also doing far and above the normal social media activity for the horror genre with a social media universe (SMU) totaling 273.2M breaking out as 35.5M Facebook fans, 7.9M Twitter followers, 225.5M YouTube views and 4.1M Instagram followers, according to RelishMix. The typical horror film has only a 61.2M SMU by opening week and It has over 273M.

According to PostTrak, most of the audience came after watching the trailer on YouTube, so let’s look, specifically, at YouTube.

It‘s YouTube views are racking up over 97K daily when the typical horror film’s daily views is usually 32K. What’s impressive about this Andy Muschietti (Mama) directed film is that it’s achieving this activity with a cast is dominated by child actors and a non-social star (Bill Skarsgard). In fact, horror author Stephen King alone is driving the activity.

The elements that tied all of these efforts together was the imagery of the yellow raincoat and the red balloon and the tagline You’ll Float Too.
Open Roads Films

We are awaiting grosses still on Home Again, the Reese Witherspoon-starring romantic comedy from Open Road Films which has a large core female audience. The film, which has drawn mixed reviews, is considered counter-programming in a weekend that will all but be chased out of theaters by a crazed clown with a red balloon. It was directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer and also stars Lake Bell and Michael Sheen. It started previews at 7 PM.

A comp for Home Again‘s comp is Bridget Jones Baby, the romantic comedy which was released during a similar time last year (on Sept. 16) and had preview numbers of $364K previews and a Friday night of $3M before ending its three-day at $8.2M. Bridget Jones Baby played at 2,208 theaters also with shows starting at 7PM.

In the social media universe (SMU), RelishMix reports that Home Again has a social media universe of 33M, well below the 47M typical for a romantic comedy in its opening week. The SMU consists of 4.5M Facebook fans, 2.9M Twitter followers, 10.2M YouTube views and 12.2M Instagram followers.

Home Again has 4.4K daily YouTube video views when 17K is typical for the genre. There are not any notable social efforts to speak of, but it is strong on convo as Witherspoon is a draw and is engaged and sharing materials to her nearly 17M fans and followers.

The other film releasing this weekend on a moderate release is 9/11 which stars Charlie Sheen, Gina Gershon and Whoopi Goldberg from Atlas. It had no previews.

Tyger wrote:Well that was unexpected

WyldeMan wrote:

I wonder what kind of bring name talent they'll be able to bring in for the adults after these kinds of numbers.

Rusty wrote:I hope they don't go for big names. They won't need them to bring in box office and there a some great actors that constantly fly under the radar.

Getting some good reviews. My likes run pretty much along the lines of the guys at Bloodbath & Beyond when it comes to horror lficks, and they had nice things to say.

“It” is terrorizing the box office all over the world.

Warner Bros. and New Line’s adaptation of the Stephen King book is launching to $179 million worldwide, including a record-breaking $117 million North American debut. The movie is taking in an impressive $62 million from 46 territories abroad.

“It” was directed by Andy Muschietti, who is already being courted for another installment. Bill Skarsgard stars as Pennywise the Clown, who terrorizes young children in Derry, Maine. The rest of the cast includes Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Nicholas Hamilton, and Jackson Robert Scott in supporting roles.

The R-rated horror pic took in $12.3 million in the U.K., accounting for 82% of the market there. Other top territories include Russia ($6.7 million), Australia ($5.9 million), and Brazil ($5.6 million).

But while “It” is the most exciting new release of the weekend, it is not topping the international box office charts. That honor goes to “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” which is stringing in $71.8 million from 47 territories. Most of that sum comes from the $70.3 million it’s earning in China. Hollywood movies have greatly benefitted in the past few weeks from the Middle Kingdom lifting its summer blackout period, which reserves theatrical releases for home-grown films, like the massive success “Wolf Warriors II.” “Homecoming” has now earned well over $800 million — its worldwide total will be $823 million after this weekend.

Otherwise, “Dunkirk” is closing in on $500 million worldwide after picking up an additional $13.5 million from 52 territories abroad. And the Tom Cruise vehicle “American Made” has yet to open in the states, but $8.1 million from 43 international spots raises its foreign total to $33.4 million so far. Other top foreign earners are “Annabelle: Creation” ($8.6 million) and “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” ($7.9 million).

UltimateMarvel wrote:DAMN! Way above the projected box office, very impressive. Hope the movie is good, who's gonna check it out?

It continues to break records drawing $8.8M yesterday which is the highest Monday that the month of September has ever seen. Previous Monday high in September was The Sixth Sense‘s Labor Day Monday of $6.37M back in 1999. In addition, in a matter of hours, It will be the highest grossing Stephen King movie of all-time at the domestic box office, surpassing the $136.8M take of 1999’s The Green Mile.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Wow! There is no stopping this movie. I guess there are still horror fans out there. lol Probably adults who were fans of the OG.

WyldeMan wrote:

UltimateMarvel wrote:Wow! There is no stopping this movie. I guess there are still horror fans out there. lol Probably adults who were fans of the OG.

The original miniseries is turrible. I remember it scaring the hell out of me and giving me serious Coulrophobia as a child but I recently revisited it and that ending was total garbage and completely different from the novel in a massive way and the rest of it wasn't that much better, they told a 1200 page story over 3 hours in the early 90's edited for television. I hear the second movie is going to stick to the craziness of the book so I'm looking forward to It: Chapter Two.