Moviegoers have not been shy about braving the deadfall and heading to a place where the ground is sour, as the first weekend numbers (thanks to Box Office Mojo) reveal that the film had the second highest opening weekend for a Stephen King adaptation (ranking behind only the massive $123 million opening weekend of 2017's IT).
Directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, the new R-rated adaptation of Stephen King's chilling 1983 novel had a production budget of about $21 million, and in addition to bringing in an estimated $25 million stateside, it raked in over $17 million internationally, combining for a global gross of about $42 million.
In the overall box office numbers for this weekend, Pet Sematary ranks only behind Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema's Shazam!, which clocked in an estimated $53.4 million domestically.
Released in 1990, Mary Lambert's Pet Sematary adaptation (which was written by King himself), grossed $57 million at the box office, although it's important to remember to adjust those numbers for inflation when comparing the box office results for both adaptations.
Jordan Peele's Us, meanwhile, brought in an estimated $13.8 million in its third weekend in theaters, bringing its domestic total to a little over $152 million, bringing it to number five on the list of the highest grossing R-rated horror films of all time (according to Box Office Mojo). Us also Untethered $10.3 million in the foreign market, bringing its worldwide gross to an estimated $216 million.
After Us had the biggest opening weekend ever for an original horror film a few weeks ago, this has been another great weekend for R-rated scares at the box office, and it's another reminder that we should continue to see new adaptations of Stephen King's work for a long time in this golden age of horror.
In case you missed it, you can check here to catch up on our previous coverage of the new Pet Sematary, including set visit impressions and video interviews with the cast and crew.
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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