By: Keaton Marcus

Diving into the weekend, WB and New Line’s killer-clown sequel reigned the first weekend of the Fall box office with some impressive numbers, despite missing the high bar set by its predecessor. The picture also took the majority of the market shares, and opened well worldwide. In an otherwise weak weekend, holdovers such as Angel has Fallen and Good Boys fell into second and third place respectively, and held strong while The Lion King and Overcomer rounded out the top five. Hobbs & Shaw also hit a major milestone globally.

As mentioned, the top spot was taken by WB (and, of course, Pennywise’s) It: Chapter Two which kicked off the Fall movie season with a bang, selling an estimated 91M in North American ticket sales. While not quite reaching the 100 million mark, or the debut of the original—its still extremely impressive on its own. The film played in a monster 4,570 theaters across the states, more than 400 sites than its predecessor—resulting in a per-screen average capping $19,912. The original expectations, for the studio and analysts were 90-100 million, with some saying a 100M+ debut was possible. Technically, that means the film played in the zone of most predictions, but it can’t help but be a little disappointing; critics say it was because of the nearly three hour run-time, and the mixed critical reception. The original film debuted with 123.4M back in 2017, which means the sequel is trailing by over 30 million, however, Chapter Two still trumped other big R-rated horror debuts such as The Nun (53.8M), Us (71.1M), and even 2018’s reboot of Halloween (76.2M)—making it the second biggest R-rated horror opening of all-time, as well as the second biggest debut for a Stephen King adaptation and the fifth largest R-rated debut of all-time. Yep, its still damn, undeniably impressive.

Overseas, the R-rated horror picture grossed an estimated 94M from 75 material markets, for an official global debut capping 185M. The worldwide opening is a little more than four million behind its predecessor, which closed with just over 700 million in the bag. Chapter Two broke horror opening records in 16 of those markets, including Russia, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland and Argentina. The biggest foreign market was Mexico, with an estimated 10.2M—followed by the UK (9.4M), Russia (8.8M), Germany (7.1M), Italy (5.5M), Brazil (4.6M), Australia (4.4M), Spain (3.2M), Korea (3.2M), Indonesia (2.7M), and Argentina (1.4M).

For the finish, we can look at a number of things. IT finished with a multiplier tallying to 2.65x, which would mean a ending of around 241M—however, the three films mentioned before (The Nun, Us and Halloween) have an average multiplier of only 2.25x, meaning crossing the line with 204M. On the lofty side, we have The Conjuring franchise, which has scared an average multiplier of 2.78x, which could give the sequel a solid 252M peak domestically. On the whole, calculating the average would make a reasonable, final prediction capping 232M—but the next few weekends shall tell all.

Review wise, It: Chapter Two found intermittent success with the critics, but scored reasonably well with the audiences. On RottenTomatoes, the 60-80 million production scored a generally positive 63% “Fresh” on the Tomatometer, praising the set-design, performances and “faithful approach”—but noting the lacking of scares and the run-time. On Metacritic, critics took a similar, mixed endeavor, giving it a weighted average of 58/100 from 51 top critics. Audiences went much easier on the anticipated sequel, handing it a solid B+ CinemaScore, and an 80% approval rating on RT. Additionally, the film took the majority of the marketplace, holding 67.4% approximately.

Taking runner-up was Lionsgate’s Angel has Fallen which grabbed an estimated 6M in its third weekend of release, falling 49.1% and tallying a decent domestic total of 53.4M from 17 days in release. Currently, it still maintains a three million lead over its predecessor, London has Fallen. The film took only 0.04% of the marketplace.

Third holds Universal’s hit comic-trip Good Boys, which laughed up a fourth weekend of 5.3M for a North American bout of 66.8M, the film has already broke even—the real question is: how far will it go from there? The 20 million production seized just 0.039% of the marketplace. Internationally, the film added 2.3M from 28 markets, for a global total of 82.4M.

Nearing the end of the top five is Disney’s remake of The Lion King which got by with an estimated 4.1M, roaring to 0.03% of the shares, and reaching 529.1M domestically. Overseas, it added 13.4M for a worldwide total of 1.599 billion dollars—making it the seventh biggest worldwide release of all-time.

Rounding out the top five was Sony’s Overcomer which continued its strong weekend-to-weekend holds with an additional 3.7M in sales. As it continues its climb upwards, the domestic total now, currently lands at 24.7M after 17 days.

Right outside the leaders was Universal’s Hobbs & Shaw which hit a major, global milestone, capping the 700 million mark—with an exact total of 719.7M! It now ranks fourth in the F&F saga (worldwide).

Next weekend we see two more nationwide releases coming to carve up slices of the top five under the rule of It: Chapter Two. STX Entertainment’s Hustlers will be playing in an estimated 3,100 theaters, and is heading towards a 25M debut. Secondly, WB’s The Goldfinch will be taking 2,500+ sites—and is predicted for a 10M opening.

TOP FIVE:

It Chapter Two
Angel has Fallen
Good Boys
The Lion King
Overcomer