The big news earlier last week was that It became the biggest-grossing horror film ever in film history, beating out the previous record holder, The Exorcist which had held that position for literally decades. As of Sunday, It has grossed $291 million domestically and $553 million worldwide to-date. Meanwhile, The Exorcist has grossed $232 million domestically to-date, so it looks like It is the box office horror winner by a mile. Or is it?
Actually, in real numbers, The Exorcist could be still number one. The film was released in December 1973, so adjusted for inflation, The Excorist has grossed to date $983 million domestically and who knows what it has made worldwide since its first release, but it’s without question clearly in the billions of dollars.
However, what is more interesting is that though it’s been conveniently overlooked by box office analysts, is that Get Out is currently the third-highest grossing horror film ever made domestically with $175.4 million and over $252.4 million worldwide. But that’s been sort of slipped under the rug. I wonder why is that?
But It still has plenty of life in it as it jumped back to the number one slot this weekend with $17.3 million, while last week’s No.1 film Kingsman: The Golden Circle slipped own to No. 3 with $17 million a dropoff of over 56 percent, which means that it’s not going to come close to what the first Kingsman film did. The surprise No.2 was Tom Cruise’s highly entertaining but highly fictionalized movie about the infamous Barry Seal, a renegade pilot who found himself involved with Colombian Medellín drug cartel, the CIA, the White House and about a dozen other scandals. The film was not expected to do well, but it actually did somewhat better than expected with $17 million which may not sound great, but isn’t bad considering the film’s very modest production budget is much lower than your average Tom Cruise movie.
However, though there have been several articles on the box office waning of Cruise’s star power he can actually still bring people in worldwide. American Made has already grossed $81 million worldwide and though The Mummy was one of the huge b.o. flops of the summer domestically, it still grossed over $407 million worldwide. So American Made is sure to make a profit even if it turns out to be a box office disappointment here in the States.
As for the big fall flops, so far Sony Pictures’ another who-was-asking-for-this-remake of their 1990 film Flatliners flatlined (sorry about that) this weekend, grossing only $6.7 million and mother! never got out of the gate and as already dropped to no. 10 in just two weeks.
And finally there’s Til Death Do Us Part, the latest life-isn’t-a-bed-of-roses-among-the-black-upper-middle-class movie (which always seem to open in September) about a beautiful, attractive and very well-to-do married couple until the wife finds out hubby is a dangerous creep and runs off finding love with a new guy until the crazy ex-husband shows up…you know the rest. You’ve seen it dozens of times before, which explains why the film did not take off this weekend opening in ninth place grossing only $1.5 million on under 600 screens.
Full list:
1) It WB (NL) $17,310,000 Total: $291,182,790 $35 4
2) American Made Uni. $17,016,000
3) Kingsman: The Golden Circle Fox $17,000,000 Total $66,701,588
4) The LEGO Ninjago Movie WB $12,000,000 Total $35,556,065
5) Flatliners Sony $6,700,000
6) Battle of the Sexes FoxS $3,400,000 Total $4,073,158
7) American Assassin LGF $3,325,000 Total$31,873,581
8) Home Again ORF $1,756,372 Total $25,181,947
9) Til Death Do Us Part NN $1,567,966
10) mother! Par. $1,460,000 Total $16,320,846
11) A Question Of Faith PFR $1,050,000
120 Victoria and Abdul Focus $1,031,000 Total $1,252,345
