With little surprise It: Chapter Two stayed on top of the global charts again and finished its second frame with $87.7 million worldwide. Global sales for the horror heavyweight have reached $323.3 by now. This sequel is still a ways off of the original’s horror movie record-setting $700.4 million take. Numbers from this frame, however, have made It Warner Bros.’ latest billion-dollar franchise, with total sales from the two films sitting at $1.023 billion.
It’s leading foreign market is the UK with $16.5 million. Mexico is shortly behind at $16.1 million, followed by Russia at $13.9 million. Italy meanwhile has a substantial local gross of $10.1 million, good enough to crack into the local top ten for 2019. Back home in the US, It 2 finished first again with $40.7 million, dropping 55% from last frame’s debut numbers. Total home market sales are now at $153.8 million
Only one person was brave enough to go up against a billion-dollar man-eating clown this weekend: Jennifer Lopez. Hustlers, her stripper drama from STX based on a New York Magazine article by Jessica Pressler, started in second with $33.2 million in North America. Lopez, Constance Wu, Julia Stiles, and real-life ex-pole dancer Cardi B star as a group of New York City strippers who in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis drugged wealthy clients to rack up huge charges on their credit cards with the goal of making enough money to get out of the dancing game.
No other film went into wide release in North America this weekend but there were a couple of noteworthy specialty offerings. R-rated drama The Goldfinch opened to $2.46 million in a medium-scale nationwide release handled by Warner Bros. Ansel Elgort stars as a boy who struggles to hold onto his sanity and deal with becoming an adult after his mother is killed in a terrorist attack. Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright, and Sarah Paulson also star.
A little more on the specialty side, Colombian picture Monos opened on five screens in LA and New York and made $42k. This film tells a surreal story about a wild tribe of teenage commandos who live in the middle off the jungle and divide their time between throwing hedonistic parties and carrying out horrifically violent operations. Neon Films is handling distribution in the US.
Back overseas, South Korean feature The Bad Guys: Reign of Chaos opened to $19 million in its home market, taking full advantage of the local four-day Chuseok harvest holiday. This light-hearted action movie is about a group of inmates who are recruited by the police to hunt down escaped criminals after a prison bus turns over. It marked one of the biggest Korean language openings of the year.
British sensation Downton Abbey’s film adaptation also launched in its home market, finishing first place on the UK chart with $6.63 million. Downton features series stalwarts Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Michelle Dockery, and Elizabeth McGovern. It aims to wrap up some of the loose ends left after the show’s six seasons. Lays outside of the UK were worth another $5 million.
It opens in the US next weekend in a packed marquee that also features Rambo: Last Blood and Ad Astra.