'It' slays the box office again while Jennifer Lawrence has a career-worst opening

It was the tale of two studios this weekend at the multiplex: Warner Bros. continued raking in the dough with its hit movie "It" while Paramount navigated the dreaded "F" CinemaScore for the Jennifer Lawrence dud "mother!"

Following its record-breaking opening weekend last week, "It" fed off the word-of-mouth as it took in an estimated $60 million this weekend to win the box office for a second-straight weekend, according to boxofficepro.com.

The movie is performing beyond anything Warner Bros. had hoped for the $35 million-budgeted adaptation of the classic Stephen King novel, as it had only a 51% drop in sales from its monster $123.4 million opening weekend.

"It" now has a total of $218.7 million at the domestic box office. That makes the horror the highest grossing September release of all time. It broke the record - 1986's "Crocodile Dundee," $174.8 million - in just two weeks!

The only competition for "It" this weekend was "mother!," the latest WTF from Darren Aronofsky ("Requiem for a Dream," "Black Swan").

Anticipation for the auteur joining forces with Jennifer Lawrence were at a high for months, but then critics began seeing the movie and the hype began to soften. Lawrence and Javier Bardem play a couple who suddenly are visited by strangers, and from there the movie just gets more and more bizarre.

Aronofsky's work is often divisive, but general audiences for the most part just didn't get it. On Saturday the movie got an "F" from CinemaScore, the company that polls audience reaction to opening weekend movies. The movie ended the weekend with $7.5 million, well below its $11 million projection.

It's the worst opening ever for a Lawrence-led wide release movie. Even the lame horror she did early in her career, 2012's "House at the End of the Street," preformed better ($12.3 million).

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