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Weekend Box Office Wrap-up: September 17, 2017
Pennywise continued to make the box office competition float, despite the presence of two new wide releases in theaters.
As expected, IT won the weekend with $60 million in its second frame. The Stephen King adaptation held well, falling 51.4 percent from its record-shattering debut. After the film posted as high numbers as it did at the outset, some slip in business was believed to happen, but this is still a very impressive showing for a movie that was perfectly timed. There frankly isn’t much to say about IT‘s dominating run through the multiplex. It simply took full advantage of the positive word-of-mouth and barren landscape and became a phenomenon. Its domestic total currently stands at $218.7 million, and it’s already the eighth-highest grossing release of 2017 so far.
Opening in a very distant second is American Assassin (read our review), which brought in $14.8 million in its first three days. The action/thriller may have been based on bestselling source material, but that didn’t it help it much in regards to the box office. Reviews painted it as a somewhat bland affair that brought little new to the table – even with Michael Keaton giving it his all. That reception proved to be too much of a hurdle in the shadow of IT, and it’ll be interesting to see how well American Assassin holds up. Next week sees the release of spy sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which should do well.
Debuting in third is mother! (read our review), the new film from director Darren Aronofsky. It grossed just $7.5 million in its first three days, a byproduct of its divisive reception. While critics liked mother! for the most part, audiences were far less forgiving. The movie was the rare recipient of the deadly “F” CinemaScore, which is toxic word-of-mouth. mother! proved to be a challenging and ambitious work leaning heavy on metaphors, and that clearly didn’t sit well with everyone. Also contributing to mother!‘s poor showing was the success of IT, which (in terms of marketing) was going after the same horror/thriller crowd. Paramount clearly didn’t anticipate IT to be as huge as it was.
While some will make the argument that the polarizing opinions generated by mother! are the best advertising Aronofksy could have asked for, it’s highly unlikely it turns things around in the coming weeks. The rest of September sees far more accessible works like Kingsman and American Made reach theaters, meaning mother! may not stick around for much longer. If interest is this low at the beginning of its run, it probably won’t have strong legs. Fortunately, the budget was only $30 million, but mother! still has a long way to go before it reaches profitability.
Coming in fourth is Home Again with $5.3 million. The film raised its domestic total to $17.1 million.
Rounding out the top five is The Hitman’s Bodyguard. The action/comedy brought in $3.5 million in its fifth weekend, raising its U.S. haul to $70.3 million.
The #6 movie is Annabelle: Creation with $2.6 million. The horror prequel is now up to $99.9 million in the U.S.
In seventh is Wind River with $2.5 million. The drama continues to hang around, raising its domestic gross to $29.1 million.
Animated film Leap! comes in eighth with $2.1 million. It’s now made $18.6 million domestically.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Homecoming is the ninth-placed movie of the week. The superhero blockbuster earned $1.8 million 11 weeks into its box office run and now stands at $330.2 million.
Capping off the top 10 is Dunkirk. Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic made $1.3 million, increasing its domestic total to $185.1 million.
[NOTE: These are only weekend box office estimates — based on Friday and Saturday ticket sales coupled with adjusted expectations for Sunday. Official weekend box office results will be released on Monday, September 11 — at which time we’ll update this post with any changes.]
Source: Box Office Mojo
