IT Box Office Reaches Monstrous $51 Million on Friday

New Line Cinema‘s IT earned a monstrous $51 million on Friday, which marks the largest Friday ever for a September release and also the largest Friday opening for the studio. The film now has a chance of opening with more than $100 million for the weekend at the North American box office. Of the $51 million, $13.5 million came from Thursday previews, which is the largest Thursday pre-show ever for a horror movie, the largest for an R-rated movie (beating Deadpool‘s $12.7 million), the largest pre-show for a September release, and the biggest for New Line. The film also set a record for the number of locations it’s playing at for an R-rated movie with 4,103 theaters.

RELATED: ComingSoon.net’s IT Review

To put things in perspective, IT has beating the previous September opening weekend record of Hotel Transylvania 2 ($48.5 million) its first day!

Internationally, IT earned $16.1 million from about 10,560 screens in 46 markets, taking the overseas total to $25.7 million. Capturing an extraordinary 86% share of the Top 5 films in the market, the UK opened to an estimated $4.5 million from 1,342 screens, becoming the biggest opening day ever for a horror film and the biggest Warner Bros. opening day in 2017.

New Line Cinema’s horror thriller IT, directed by Andrés Muschietti (Mama), is based on the hugely popular Stephen King novel of the same name, which has been terrifying readers for decades. When children begin to disappear in the town of Derry, Maine, a group of young kids are faced with their biggest fears when they square off against an evil clown named Pennywise, whose history of murder and violence dates back for centuries.

RELATED: Interviews with the IT Cast and Crew!

IT stars Bill Skarsgård as the story’s central villain, Pennywise the clown. An ensemble of young actors also star in the film, including Jaeden Lieberher (Midnight Special), Jeremy Ray Taylor (Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip), Sophia Lillis (37), Finn Wolfhard (TV’s Stranger Things), Wyatt Oleff (Guardians of the Galaxy), Chosen Jacobs (upcoming Cops and Robbers), Jack Dylan Grazer (Tales of Halloween) and Nicholas Hamilton (Captain Fantastic).

A sequel to IT is already in the works with Gary Dauberman writing the script. Muschietti is expected to return, but he hasn’t signed a deal yet.

Did you get a chance to see IT? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!