Despite box office tracking for The Wild Robot placing it at a $20 million to $30 million opening. The film opened with a higher-than-expected debut.
The Wild Box Office
The Wild Robot debuted in first place with $35 million as per Box Office Mojo. The movie was tracking for a $20 million to $30 million opening but despite this, the movie made slightly more. Not a huge amount, but positive word of mouth and good reviews influenced a good portion of the audience to go see it. The movie cost $78 million, so there are still some ways to recoup those costs. Universal is hoping it’ll have staying power not too dissimilar to this year’s Inside Out 2. Whether that’s the case or not is hard to say, but it’s certainly not the easiest task.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice dropped from first to second, earning $16 million.
Trouble At The Box Office
Transformers One saw a steep drop off of 62%; bringing it from second to third with only $9.3 million. Undoubtedly Paramount was hoping for a second wind of sorts for the movie as it failed to find an audience last weekend. Sadly, audiences still don’t seem to be resonating with the animated origin story. At this point, it’s likely not going to see any turnaround at the box office.
Bollywood film, Devara Part 1, debuted in fourth place with $5.6 million. Speak No Evil dropped from third to fifth, making $4.3 million.
Megalopolis was tracking for an $8 million opening at the box office. However, I predicted it would peak at $5 million an even thought it would be a struggle to make that, and I was correct. The movie made only $4 million on a $120 million budget. This is certainly one of the biggest flops of the year. All of the funding for this movie came from Francis Ford Coppola himself, so Lionsgate and other partners are off the hook for this. Still, it’s likely got to sting for Coppola personally to see $100+ million lost on the project.
Next Week Is No Joke
Joker: Folie à Deux is next week’s new release and it’s already causing a stir at the box office.
Box office tracking for the film has declined greatly since early reviews and spoilers paint a picture of a divisive film. So much so that the film was tracking for a $100+ million opening but is now in the $48 million to $68 million range. Quite a drop from the original estimates; but with the film currently sitting at 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, it certainly is not looking positive.
I do expect it to be on the higher end of its estimates. It’s hard to say just how deterred that male demographic is. While it’s smart to not expect it to be making enough to make $1 billion in total; I do think it’ll have a sizable enough audience and with such low performers at the box office. It’ll be a clear winner either way.
As always, we’ll find out next week!
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