USA TODAY International Edition
‘mother!’ doesn’t come close to catching ‘It’
King thriller takes in another $60M, ‘Assassin’ is second
NEW YORK The adaption of Stephen King’s It continues to scare up record ticket sales, taking in an estimated $60 million in its second week and leaving a paltry $7.5 million for Darren Aronofsky’s audacious genre-bending psychological thriller mother!
New Line and Warner Bros.’ It easily remained the top draw in North American theaters. It slid 51% from last week’s unexpectedly sensational opening of $123 million, the first September release to debut north of $100 million. Most had expected It to open to about half that.
With $218.7 million to date, It is now the highest grossing September release ever, and a muchneeded hit following a summer box office that slumped to a historically bad August. It, starring Bill Skarsgård as the evil clown Pennywise, also added $60.3 million internationally.
Paramount Pictures’ mother! has horror elements, too, so it was risky to schedule it right behind It. But Aronofsky’s film, which lands at No. 3, is a more art-house proposition, made for about $30 million. For star Jennifer Lawrence, it’s the worst widerelease opening of her career.
Reviews generally were good (68% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes) for mother!, which premiered last week at the Venice Film Festival. But the film — an intense, allegorical tale about a woman (Lawrence) whose rural Victorian house is overrun by unwanted guests — is an undeniably atypical, auteur-driven studio release. Audiences didn’t care for it, giving it a seldom-seen F CinemaScore.
“Admittedly, there are audiences who aren’t responding as favorably, but I think it’s one of those movies that’s so different and so audacious,” said Kyle Davies, president of domestic distribution for Paramount. “Darren’s one of the most dynamic filmmakers out there today. So the movie is really getting a strong reaction, and I think it takes people a while to process the movie.”
Aronofsky, the filmmaker of Black Swan and The Wrestler, previously helmed the Paramount 2014 release Noah. The Bible epic sailed through controversy to make $362.6 million worldwide.
The counterterrorism thriller American Assassin, from Lionsgate and CBS Films, edged out mother! for second place with $14.8 million. That was a solid result for the film starring Dylan O’Brien and Michael Keaton. Rounding out the top five: Home Again ($5.3 million) and The Hitman’s Bodyguard ($3.6 million).
One of the summer’s box office weakly performing sequels found a modicum of redemption. Two months after its North American release, Fox’s War for the Planet of the Apes opened in China with $62.3 million. That marks not only the studio’s best debut in China but also sends Matt Reeves’ Planet of the Apes sequel toward a more gorilla-size global haul of $432 million.
Final domestic figures will be released Monday.