• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, September 11, 2017

You just knew something would come along to shock moviegoers out of their summer lethargy and a malevolent Stephen King clown proved to be just the right agent. 

“The horror movie It arrived as a cultural juggernaut over the weekend, smashing September box office records with an eye-popping $117.2 million in estimated North American ticket sales and ending an alarmingly slow period at multiplexes,” writes Brooks Barnes for the New York Times. “… What clicked with It in such spectacular fashion? Start with a well-made and expertly marketed movie.”

Directed by Andy Muschietti, It “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,” according to the Rotten Tomato synopsis. It scored 86% among 202 critics; 89% of the audience liked it.

Swedish actor Bill Skarskgard is drawing widespread plaudits for his portrayal of Pennywise, but “mostly what makes It appealing is a cast of young, relatively unknown actors who, unlike most horror flick stars, leave a feeling we'll see them again,” writes Steve Persall for the Tampa Bay Times.

“‘We blew past everyone’s expectations in a big way. This is the first Sunday of football and because of the weather, I think our number is more in the ballpark but we have lots of room to grow,’ said Warner Bros. president domestic theatrical distribution Jeffrey Goldstein, who said they were strong everywhere and the Hispanic markets were really dominating,” report Anita Busch and Anthony D'Alessandro for Deadline Hollywood.

“Gotta give kudos again to Warner Bros. President of Worldwide Marketing Blair Rich who oversees promoting New Line’s product and to New Line’s production execs Walter Hamada and Dave Neustadter. And the studio has another winner on its hands with a string of hits now with Wonder Woman, Dunkirk and Annabelle: Creation (which should pass $100M sometime this week),” write Busch and D'Alessandro.

Rich’s “teaser trailer for It received 197 million views online in its first 24 hours, the largest in Hollywood history. ‘It’s really a reflection of the whole Warner marketing team,’ Ms. Rich said. ‘They are truly skilled at turning a film into an event. And New Line gave us an incredible film to work with,’” writes the NYT’s Barnes.

“Over the past three and a half decades, adaptations of King's works have thrilled, touched and enthralled audiences worldwide, with over 50 adaptations made. From classic horror films like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot to Oscar contenders like Frank Darabont's Shawshank Redemption, King's novels and short stories have resonated with audiences on many levels. However, perhaps none have been as viscerally frightening and bone-chilling as this year's It,” posits the introduction to a discussion by The Hollywood Reporter's Patrick Shanley and Pete Keeley about “the chemistry of the cast, the major scares, Skarsgard's standout performance and everything else that made It float.”

You’d think that cable news, our social feeds and — in certain anachronistic pockets of resistance — newspaper headlines would be providing enough terrifying news to sate our appetites for being scared out of our wits. Apparently not.

“Americans unwilling to leave the comfort of their homes, big-screen TVs, bingeable Netflix shows, and cinematic Game of Thrones are still showing up in droves to have the stuffing scared out of them by R and PG-13-rated movies like Get Out, Split, and Annabelle: Creation, all of which have landed surprisingly high spots in the domestic box office charts this year. And without the political currency of Get Out, the buzzy twist of Split, or the franchising power of Annabelle, Stephen King’s It joins this trend for one very good reason: the addictive power of shared fear,” suggests Joanna Robinson for Vanity Fair.

“There’s currently a battle raging at movie theaters across the country over ever-shifting cinema etiquette,” Robinson continues. “… And just this weekend, New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo kicked the hornet’s nest of film Twitter when he suggested, via tweet: ‘I have a solution for the movie industry's problem of people not going to the movies anymore: let us use phones.’”

In a follow-up, Manjoo tweets: “The movies should be social. Selected screenings, maybe 2x a day, where you can use phones, talk, do what you like. You pay more for it.” Then: “It's like … how you watch TV.”

Tells you something when the only thing we have to talk about is fear itself.