TAGGED AS: Box Office, movies, news
It may be a week late, but a new animated film finally took Beetlejuice out of the top spot at the box office. Families indeed appeared to have been waiting to take their kids to the new one from the director of How To Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch and made it onto a notable September list. Francis Ford Coppola also got his long-gestating dream project into theaters, and it ended up on a far more infamous list.
Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot opened this weekend with one of the best critical scores of the year and its not even close, at least when you narrow the list specifically to films released across the country in over 3,000 theaters. Up to now, that champion has still been Dune: Part Two, which is Certified Fresh at 92%. The Wild Robot went into Friday also Certified Fresh, but at 98%, and ended the weekend with the same. Whether audiences were paying attention or not, the Universal/Dreamworks release opened to $35.79 million, which was also good enough to replace Sweet Home Alabama’s $35.64 million in 2002 for the 10th-best September opening ever. Not quite either of the first two Hotel Transylvania movies, which opened to $42.5 million and $48.4 million in 2012 and 2015, but ahead of 2013’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2’s $34 million start. Inflation might like to have a word with those rankings, but we’ll keep focused on The Wild Robot’s prospects.
This column has advised studios time and again over the years to avoid releasing their animated titles in August; if they would just wait until September they would have more success. Even if their openings don’t seem to break many records, it’s their staying power with audiences during the autumn season that is notable. Granted, that may not not necessarily be the case for Transformers One, but for the other nine titles that made up September’s top 10 animated releases, the multiples speak for themselves. Only last year’s Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie came in under three times its opening (2.86), while the rest ranged from Disney’s 3D re-release of The Lion King (3.12) up to the original Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (4.12). In between, the consistency is really something, going from 3.41 (Storks) to 3.61 (Smallfoot).
Even with Paw Patrol bringing down that average to 3.46 – and Transformers One could bring it down even further – The Wild Robot has a chance to re-balance it. An average word-of-mouth response could see the film getting between $120-125 million. That’s a solid goal to combine with some international bucks to recoup its $78 million budget and then some. So far, it has grossed $18 million outside North America, and it would have to get up to $75-80 million if the domestic target is reached to call this a financial success. Clearly, it has already achieved that success with critics. Now lets see if the audiences follow suit.
It must be said upfront that Megalopolis was never built for box office records or stamina of any kind. Whether it was made for moviegoers or just Francis Ford Coppola himself can be debated, but it was a film not built for financial success and a return-on-investment. It is a shame, that Lionsgate keeps ending up in this section of the column, but the good news about their release of Megalopolis is that they did not pay for the production. The $120 million cost is all on the filmmaker himself, who sold off winery assets to get his epic vision of society’s collapse and re-creation — one he has been thinking about since the 1970s — finally made. Critics have been saying he should have put more thought into it, given its Rotten Tomatometer score, but at least it’s not quite as low as his last two efforts, Twixt and Youth Without Youth, nor is it as bad as 1996’s Jack.
Its doubtful Lionsgate could have done any more for Megalopolis’ opening, though putting out the infamous trailer with AI-generated fake critic quotes designed to show that his greatest works were unappreciated in their time too could not have helped. Alas, its start of just $4 million puts the film in rarified territory. We brought attention to this list weeks ago with the $8.6 million opening of Borderlands (also a Lionsgate release) but Megalopolis went even lower. In the history of films with reported production costs of $120 million or higher, only one film opened worse than Megalopolis, and that was Doug Liman’s Chaos Walking ($3.05 million). That film could also lean into the excuse that it was released in March 2021 in the early vaccine days of the pandemic. It was also — you guessed it — a Lionsgate release. Megalopolis is the film Coppola wanted and chose to make, and we can all argue about money being better spent, but that can also be said about a lot of films with even higher budgets that ended up nine figures in the red.
After a three-week run at No. 1, Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice dropped back to second place this week with $16.2 million. That puts it over $250 million with a potential path to get over $300 million. The film is less than a million behind the pace of Star Wars Episode II – Attack of the Clones, which had $250.7 million after 24 days. That film’s fourth weekend was also only $14 million. If Beetlejuice stays above that pace — and that seems very possible — it could ultimately outgross Episode II’ $302 million. The film is at $123 million internationally, bringing its current total to $373 million; $400 million appears inevitable, making four times the film’s budget when generally around 2.5 will suffice. It is securely one of the biggest successes of 2024.
Those a bit shocked by the animated prequel falling short last week may be stunned by even worse numbers for Transformers One this weekend. From $24.6 million down to $9.1 million, that is a 63% drop that brings its 10-day total to just $39 million. Shane Black’s The Predator fell 62% down to $9.1 million back in 2018 and had a total of $40.9 million after 10 days; it continued to drop hard and only ended up with $51 million. Transformers One may recalibrate a little better than that, but it is looking at a real possibility that it does not even reach $60 million domestically. Its all on the international side now, normally the friend to the Transformers series, but even with its boost to big overseas markets, it is only up to $32.8 million and has grossed just $72 million worldwide so far. Further animated efforts in the franchise are unlikely to be showing up anytime soon.
Making a splash this week in the top five is the three-hour Bollywood action epic Devara Part 1, coming in with $5.6 million. That was after a $2.8 million start in Thursday shows, which outdid both Transformers One and Beetlejuice Deux combined. Blumhouse is well covered in the grosses for Speak No Evil. The remake of the 2022 Danish film made $4.2 million in its third week for a total of $28.1 million. The film is over $57 million worldwide and has more than cleared its $15 million production cost.
In its 10th weekend in the top 10, Deadpool & Wolverine grossed $2.7 million, bringing its total to $631.3 million. It is only $5 million from passing Barbie to become the 11th highest-grossing first run domestic release of all-time. Lionsgate shows up again on the list with the Alexandra Aja horror film Never Let Go in eighth with $2.24 million. That amounts to a paltry $8.3 million total for the $20 million production. Amazon/MGM expanded Sundance pickup My Old Ass after two weeks of limited release into 1,390 theaters and it grossed $2.18 million. Sneaking into the top 10 was Howl’s Moving Castle, part of GKids and Fathom Events’ ongoing Studio Ghibli Fest, grossing $2.11 million. Also for the kids, Mubi’s wide release of Coralie Faraget’s The Substance just missed the top 10; it grossed $2.06 million for a total of $7.1 million.
As we begin to enter the period of many limited releases vying for both audience and award attention, Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night opened in five theaters with $265,000. Initially it was set to open wide on Oct. 11 (it still will) but had two weeks of platforming added after positive reviews at Telluride. The $53,000 per-theater average is the second best of the year after Searchlight’s five-theater release of Kinds of Kindness opened to $377,289 and then barely got over $5 million when expanded wide. Roadside’s release of Ellen Kuras’ Lee with Kate Winslet as the famed war photographer grossed $723,000. After weeks of Reagan and Am I Racist? setting up camp in the top 10 (the latter has now grossed over $11 million), convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza’s latest, Vindicating Trump, opened in 813 theaters to just $762,000. That’s a per-theater average of $937, which I’m sure some will say is the greatest PTA in the history of movies.
One of the biggest successes in the history of Warner Bros. gets its sequel in Joker: Folie a Deux next week. Todd Phillips’ film with Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga received somewhat lukewarm reviews out of its premiere in Venice; it’s currently Fresh, but it may dip into Rotten territory by its opening. Lionsgate will also be in the column again as they finally release White Bird, the Holocaust tale with Helen Mirren that has been delayed and sitting on the shelf for over two years.
97%
98%
The Wild Robot
(2024)
– $35.7 million ($35.7 million total)
76%
79%
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
(2024)
– $16.2 million ($250.3 million total)
89%
98%
Transformers One
(2024)
– $9.1 million ($39 million total)
33%
78%
Devara Part 1
(2024)
– $5.6 million ($6.7 million total)
83%
84%
Speak No Evil
(2024)
– $4.2 million ($28.1 million total)
45%
35%
Megalopolis
(2024)
– $4 million ($4 million total)
78%
94%
Deadpool & Wolverine
(2024)
– $2.7 million ($631.3 million total)
58%
54%
Never Let Go
(2024)
– $2.24 million ($8.3 million total)
90%
89%
My Old Ass
(2024)
– $2.18 million ($2.8 million total)
88%
93%
Howl's Moving Castle
(2004)
– $2.11 million ($2.3 million total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast.
[box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by Parisa Taghizadeh/©Warner Bros.
