Horror of horror films: Stephen King’s “It” made $60 million its second week.

That’s EIGHT times as much as Darren Aronofsky’s “Mother!” made– just $7.5 million. That’s a half million dollars less than the low estimates from Paramount.

“Mother!” has a published price tag of $33 million. But that seems low given that Lawrence and Javier Bardem are Oscar winners, that’s she’s a huge box office star, and the cost of shlepping everyone around.

Not only that– Paramount rented out Radio City Music Hall for its premiere, flew everyone in, put them up, and had a swanky party (no press allowed so I don’t know what they served).

Let’s say $60 million.

It’s heartbreaking for my pals at Paramount who did everything they could to market this movie. They really worked it, too, god bless ’em. And choppier waters are ahead with the disappointing George Clooney movie “Suburbicon” and Alexander Payne’s smallish “Downsizing” waiting in the wings.

But both of those should do better than “Mother!” I mean, this was not much more than the Nicolas Cage movie “Vengeance,” which made just $5,000.

Nicolas Cage once won an Oscar for “Leaving Las Vegas.” He was the star of movies like “Face/Off,” “Peggy Sue Got Married,” and “Moonstruck.”

That was a long time ago.

This weekend, Cage’s latest almost-straight-to-video release made just five thousand dollars playing on nine screens. That’s $556 per theater. That’s not enough to butter the popcorn.

What happened to Nicolas Cage, nephew of Francis Ford Coppola and cousin to Sofia Coppola and Jason Schwartzman? He was a star. But it’s been 10 years since he was in an actual hit– “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” which made $220 million.

That Indian Jones rip off was the sequel to the first “National Treasure” movie in 2004. But Cage’s career was already sputtering to an end as he made one crappy movie after another to pay extraordinary personal bills.

“Vengeance” was his first release since 2014’s “Left Behind,” which made $14 million– with an opening weekend of $6 million.

What makes this so bad is that “Vengeance” is based on a story by famed author Joyce Carol Oates with a screenplay by David Mankiewicz. But it’s got a not well known director and co-stars include Don Johnson and, believe it or not, Charlene Tilton of “Dallas” fame.

The only advice anyone can give him is what Cher said to him in “Moonstruck”: “Snap out of it!”

The box office continued its downhill roll yesterday. Darren Aronofsky’s “Mother!” starring Jennifer Lawrence proved to be a dud. “American Assassin” directed by Michael Cuesta and starring Michael Keaton is also a bust, although its minimal budget of $33 million may mitigate huge losses.

“Mother!” took in just $3 million last night, “American Assassin” came in at $5.8 million.

Meanwhile power horror film “It” scared up another $19 million on Friday night. The two week total through last night is $178 million.

By now you may know that Harry Dean Stanton has died at the age of 91. He was an enigmatic character actor who was Jack Nicholson’s best friend, a hero of Sean Penn and David Lynch, and a guilty pleasure kind of character actor you always looked forward to seeing in a movie.

He made a lot of movies, too. Harry Dean started in the classic TV era in the late 50s, and appeared in show after show. He had a kind of dry humor and wan look that made him an easy casting as a fallen soldier, an alcoholic, a grifter. He always looked worn out and later that gave him a kind of wisdom that stretched across his angular face. As recently as this summer he was in several episodes of David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” reboot (for no apparent purpose except to be himself). At his death he still had two movies in the can including “Lucky,” which co-stars Lynch.

Harry was a cult figure in Hollywood until the early 80s when he finally hit it big in Alex Cox’s clever indie film, “Repo Man.” He followed that with Wim Wenders’ “Paris, Texas,” and “Stars and Bars” (with Daniel Day Lewis), John Hughes’s “Pretty in Pink,” and so on. Suddenly he was one of those guys we were looking for in hip films. Those would come to include David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart,” and “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” (in which he originated Carl Rodd). He had an outlaw quality that appealed to Hollywood bad boys like Penn and even Charlie Sheen.

Movies won’t be the same without Harry Dean Stanton. But even as a character actor he’d be worth a tribute festival. His arc in film history represents some of the best work ever. He will be sorely missed.