Exactly $50m is already a HUGE win for this. I don't see its buzz being all time great for it to open this big.

A very lackluster August is going to make it really easy for IT to breakout. First event movie in a while.

Paranormal Activity 3 opened to almost 53 Million. Can't really see IT doing any less.

If Annabelle Creation could muster 35m this is gonna be gigantic, even for September.

This could be really close. At this point I feel it's got a 50/50 shot at it.

Annabelle's breakout doesn't essentially hamper this but it still should put a limit to its opening.

Why would Annabelle's performance limit this...?

So because horror fans saw one horror movie they won't want to see another just under a month later?

Annabelle also had a 4 minute clip of It that played before the film lol

That was annoying just because I hate seeing such a big chunk of the film. I've already seen enough. But it should do the trick. The clip was great.

Not all, but Sparrow obviously has a point that if film A was not released at all, the hype to see film B would be greater. That's basic box office stuff. Even if IT loses $1m because they "just saw a horror film and I don't really like horrors much anyway", then Annabelle has had an impact. And if you are thinking that either film will make 100% of its gross purely from horror fans, then you're mistaken.

Annabelle is going to still be relevant this weekend and the week after. As Algren mentioned that's just basic BO and not all are going to be only horror movie fans. Specially the breakout of Annabelle doesn't help it in the hindsight. Not saying that my $50m+ prediction for this won't happen but $75m seems even farther now than before.

Don't you worry, they'll float too.

So tracking is already pretty confident that this is crushing the September OW record. Kinda glad that I kept this high still. If tracking already has $50 million as the low end...

Just updated the first post with members, if I missed anyone let me know. I'll be closing up the club pretty soon now that tracking is coming out.

I'm surprised I didn't mention this in my original post, but I think one of my inspirations for going this high was 300. That's another R-rated film with some killer marketing that opened in what was at the time still a pretty uneventful month - before 2007, the biggest non-Blue Sky opening in that month was The Ring Two with $35.1 million, and 300 more than doubled that. I think hype is pretty comparable to It at this point.

Maybe Annabelle will only serve to whet their appetites and increase interest. I think IT will be attracting a lot more non-horror fans than Annabelle did. It's just too much of an event.

Everyone I've talked to, horror fans and not, think It looks awesome.

From the Deadline article
Those are ridiculous, crazy numbers.

Excellent point! I can't believe I forgot about 300. While not a horror film, 300 was very dark, violent, and gory. So the comparison is actually quite valid. 300 debuted while schools were in session, just like IT is debuting. Also given that both films are rated R, schools being in session has a negligible impact since the films are aimed at older audiences. 300 adjusts to about a 91M OW, so this club is very much in play.



For a horror film, yes those are bonkers numbers.

All this means is that we will get IT 2. Ugh.

Think this was a given since the mini series (and I'm guessing books?) has the kids when they're adults.

This movie adapts the first half of the book, so we should get It 2.

If it was a given since the mini series, we would have seen a sequel already - it has been 27 years. IT 2 is only a given because of this film's box office prospects. I would even expect to see an sequel announcement a couple of days before IT opens.

No because the mini-series covers this and has the kids as adults. This film doesn't. So I would be pissed if this didn't get a sequel and was left incomplete. Thankfully it's going to post big numbers because I hate when something under-performs so they don't complete a series.

#4 on MT today with 6%. Going to be massive.