IT Helps Lead to Best-Ever September Box Office

The domestic box office floats to a record high for the month.

By Jonathon Dornbush

Led by the massive box office success of Stephen King's IT, the domestic box office saw its best September ever on record, unadjusted for inflation.

Taking into account the box office results of this weekend, September's domestic box office total reached $694.9 million, according to Box Office Mojo. That's nearly $70 million higher than the last record September, 2015's $626.4 million October, which included Hotel Transylvania 2 as its highest earner. (Adjusted for inflation, that month would come in at about $648.9 million, still under 2017's September box office total.)

That huge total is in large part thanks to IT, which brought in nearly 40 percent of this September's haul. The new take on Stephen King's classic novel recently crossed the $500 million mark at the worldwide box office, making it the most successful horror film unadjusted for inflation.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is the second-highest earning film of the month, having opened at the top of the box office and above the debut of its predecessor. BOM notes, however, that after 10 days at the box office, The Golden Circle now trails the domestic total of the original Kingsman: The Secret Service.

While past Septembers, adjusted for inflation, can't quite reach the high of 2017's, check out the top five domestic September box offices on record below:

September Year of Record	Domestic Total	Domestic Total, Adjusted	Highest Grossing Movie of September	Percentage Contribution of Top Film to Month's Total
2017	$694.9 million	$694.9 million	Stephen King's IT	41.2 percent
2015	$626.4 million	$648.9 million	Hotel Transylvania 2	8.9 percent
2011	$603.5 million	$658.7 million	The Lion King 3D	11.9 percent
2016	$588.5 million	$602 million	Sully	16.9 percent
2013	$576.1 million	$607.2 million	Insidious Chapter 2	12.1 percent

And also as noted by BOM, this uptick in box office results also offsets some of the year's downturn. At the beginning of September, the total domestic box office was down 6.3 percent year-over-year, and by the end, it is now only down by 4.6 percent.

IT's blockbuster-like contribution to the record month can easily been seen when looking at the percentage of September's box office IT accounted for. The film contributed nearly half of the month's total box office. (Comparatively, no top September movie on record on Box Office Mojo has ever accounted for more than 20 percent of the month's box office.)

That success has lead to an already announced IT sequel release date. For more on the sequel, check out our comprehensive overview of everything we know about IT: Chapter 2 thus far, as well as an explanation of how the ending of the first film sets up the sequel. And be sure to check out our top picks for who should play the adult versions of the Losers Club in IT: Chapter 2.

Jonathon Dornbush is an Associate Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

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