It’s the year of 1988 and the quaint town of Derry, Maine is about to welcome an uninvited guest into its midst.
We are, of course, referring to Pennywise, Stephen King’s horrific abomination that’s able to contort and change its appearance depending on the hapless victim at hand. For The Losers Club, those primal fears manifest themselves in the form of abusive parents, runaway siblings, and over-friendly clowns from the 19th century. Talk about nightmare fuel.
And if there was ever any doubt that New Line and Andy Muschietti’s It reboot was bound for success, data compiled by The Wrap has confirmed that, yes, the budding horror hit of 2017 is well on its way to becoming a box office monster.
Thanks to all that pent-up demand, It collected a whopping $50 million on Friday alone. If you recall, initial estimates for the opening weekend were only about $50-60 million total. That figure was eventually bumped to $70 million but now, analysts are predicting that the film could rake in $103 million when all is said and done and the final numbers are tallied on Monday morning. That would be a mighty impressive feat, one that would put It as only the fifth film to open in 2017 with over $100 million.
Furthermore, should the reboot cross that mark, it would knock I Am Legend off the top spot of biggest all-time opening for a horror flick, as that movie did $77 million back when it released in 2007. The good news doesn’t end there, though, as It has now beaten the September opening weekend record, which was set by Hotel Transylvania 2‘s $48.4 million. Not to mention that it’ll surely rack up a few more records as well by the time the weekend comes to a close.
With that in mind, you can bet that Warner Bros. and New Line are feeling pretty happy right now about their decision to issue the go-ahead for It: Chapter 2. A 2019 release is said to be the target, and while we don’t have any other details on the sequel just yet, it’ll certainly be interesting to watch how high It climbs (floats?) at the weekend box office over the next few days.
