'It' Breaks Box Office Records; Scares Off 'Mother!' & 'American Assassin" On 2nd Week Run

“It” of New Line/Warner Bros. emerged the box office champ in its second week after its enormous $123.4M first weekend take. With its current box office at $218.7M, “It” becomes the highest grossing September release ever taking over 1986-released “Crocodile Dundee” which grossed $174.8M.

The movie also is projected to take in $280-$300M all over the United States. As it stands, it is only $14.2M away from overtaking the classic “The Exorcist,” including its reissues. If there is any wonder why moviegoers are not watching Dylan O’Brien’s “American Assassin” or Jennifer Lawrence’s “mother!,” it is because they are in cinemas watching “It” instead.

Insiders over at Warner Bros. credit the success of “It” not only due to an intriguing marketing campaign according to Deadline. They think it’s also due to their staying faithful to its source material, the 1990 Stephen King book miniseries of the same title.

Meanwhile, a rare F grade from CinemaScore audiences seemed to have doomed “mother!” At the box office. It crashed well below the $11M projections to just $7.5M. It now becomes the lowest opening for a Jennifer Lawrence film, even lower than the 2012 horror movie “The House at the End of the Street” which was at $12.3M reports Time.

One of the problems that experts believe hounded “mother!” is that Lawrence is playing against the type that film audiences associate her with. She plays a frightened woman in the film as against the heroic and strong woman she played in “Hunger Games,” “Joy” and even “American Hustle.”

CBS/Lionsgate’s “American Assassin” stayed safe with an opening of $14.8M as of Monday morning per CBS. The counter-terrorism action film earned a solid B+ CinemaScore. CBS is reportedly happy with the result and it is understandable if the movie is compared against “The Mechanic” ($11.4M) and “John Wick” ($14.4M opening).

Lead stars Dylan O’Brien and Michael Keaton heavily promoted “American Assassin” to their 4.6M and 440K Twitter followers respectively. Keaton also retweeted promos and promo stunts such as when O’Brien met with the New York Mets. Reports say that his fans shouted out to O’Brien in the social media. Also, CBS, which gets complimentary TV spots on its parent network, put more of the actor in the movie ads near the end of the promo period.

Tags

Stephen King, Mother, Jennifer Lawrence