‘IT’ Expanding to 2,500 Screens in Honor of Halloween

The box office performance of the latest adaptation of IT has earned it the notoriety of being the highest-grossing horror film of all time, in addition to becoming one of the highest grossing R-rated films ever and will surely be one of the top box office earners of the year. Whether you missed the film at your local theater or hope to revisit the film, IT will expand to play on over 2,500 screens this weekend. To celebrate, you can check out the first four minutes of the film above.

The film’s expansion this week is a bold move for Warner Bros., as this will be the last weekend before Halloween, a time in which audiences are excited to check out a horror movie on the big screen. IT makes for the perfect choice to get in the spirit of the holiday, but it will be competing for box office against the latest installment in the Saw franchise, Jigsaw.

Considering IT has already grossed more than $320 million domestically, it has nothing to lose by expanding this weekend, but Jigsaw‘s distributor, Lionsgate, might not be too happy about the competition.

Many of the original installments in the Saw series debuted in theaters the weekend before Halloween, regularly taking the top spot in ticket sales that weekend. After a seven-year absence and films like lo-fi installments in the Paranormal Activity franchise took its place, Jigsaw was opening with no horror competition this weekend.

Despite the Saw films regularly winning their opening weekends, the previous installment, Saw 3D:VI, sits at only 9% positive reviews on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. The highest score in the series is the original film’s 48%.

On the other hand, critical reception to IT has been primarily positive, sitting at 84% positive reviews, in addition to fan response being positive, making it one of the dominating pop culture releases of the season.

In other words, while the Saw films might have previously won their opening weekends, the series has never been considered one of quality, compared to IT, which sits at over $650 million worldwide.

We’ll find out which horror film reigns supreme after Jigsaw‘s debut and IT‘s expansion this weekend.