They might be the Losers Club, but they are about to win at the box office for a second time. Buzz continues to mount for IT CHAPTER TWO ahead of its release next month, and it’s shaping up to be a huge success like the first installment released in 2017.
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According to early box office projections, the Stephen King sequel is currently pacing to make between $95 million and $110 million in its opening weekend in theaters, starting September 6th. This is a bit shy of the first film, which took in $123 million in its debut — but keep in mind, that’s the highest gross an R-rated horror film has ever made at the box office.
These are early projections and as the reviews and sneak preview reactions start to roll in, IT CHAPTER TWO could benefit from the chatter and drive a lot more ticket sales.
Stephen King’s IT is a seminal horror novel and already inspired one adaptation, a cult-favorite TV miniseries that premiered in the early ’90s. This new cinematic adaptation split the two stories into two films; the 2017 released focused on the young version of the Losers Club when they first come into conflict with the demonic entity known only as IT.
The new movie gets bolstered by the star power of Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, and Bill Hader as they play the adult versions of the original characters, returning to their hometown of Derry to combat the growing evil once again.
The movie will be packed with action, as the official runtime was finally revealed; IT CHAPTER TWO clocks in 2 hours and 49 minutes, putting it up there alongside the length of Avengers: Endgame.
Director Andy Muschietti explained that it could have been much, much longer, but that’s what the director’s cut and deleted scenes will be for as he tries to make the movie acceptable to the casual audience.
“A movie is very different when you’re writing the script and you’re building a story compared to what the final product is,” Muschietti explained in a report from Digital Spy. “At the beginning, when you’re writing and building the beats of the story, everything that you put in there seems very essential to the story. However, when you have the movie finally edited and it’s 4 hours long, you realize that some of the events and some of the beats can be easily lifted but the essence of the story remains intact.”
Muschietti added, “You cannot deliver a 4-hour movie because people will start to feel uncomfortable – no matter what they see – but we ended up having a movie that is 2 hours and 45 minutes, and the pacing is very good. Nobody who’s seen the movie has had any complaint.”
IT CHAPTER TWO premieres in theaters on September 6th.
