Well, ol’ buddy, it looks like the cinematic landscape is shaping up quite nicely this week! I remember back in my day, we didn’t have all these fancy limited releases and expansions, but I reckon times change, eh?
This narrative I’m going to share with you transpired during the last weekend of September 2024, a time marked by our clash with Zaslav and the streaming platforms. I bring this up because occasionally there’s a film… I wouldn’t call it heroic, for what is a hero? But sometimes, there’s a film. In this case, I’m referring to “The Wild Robot“. Sometimes, films like these are perfectly suited for their particular moment in history. They just seem to fit right in. And that’s exactly what happened with “The Wild Robot“, during the final weekend of 2024.
Occasionally, I find myself immersed in a game that’s so captivating, it feels like a movie. And right now, I can’t help but think of “The Wild Robot” – a tale that’s drawn me in time and again.
It’s plausible that “The Wild Robot” could be considered a hero this weekend due to its successful revival of independent animation’s box office success in 2024. Directed by Chris Sanders, this film grossed an impressive $35 million domestically, marking the first time a non-sequel animated movie has opened to over $30 million since cinemas closed due to COVID in March 2020. Remarkably, its opening is comparable to pre-COVID DreamWorks movies, matching the debuts of films like “Bee Movie” and “Over the Hedge,” and only falling short by 18% compared to “The Croods” (also directed by Sanders). Significantly, this production had a budget of $78 million, significantly lower than the $125-$175 million budgets of most DreamWorks movies from 2007 to 2019.
In September, the animated film The Wild Robot enjoyed a record-breaking opening weekend for non-animated films from Sony Pictures Animation. Unlike other animated titles released around this time (such as last week’s Transformers One), it surpassed expectations with an estimated opening weekend gross of $20-$25 million. The unique animation style and clever mix of humor and emotion in the film’s marketing attracted families, who found it appealing. Meanwhile, the previous week’s release of Transformers One primarily appealed to adult fans, making The Wild Robot the top family-friendly movie option. Positive buzz, as evidenced by its A CinemaScore rating and glowing reviews, contributed to its successful debut.
Previously, Brian Robbins, head of Paramount Pictures, announced that the studio would stop releasing original animated films in cinemas. As he put it, “We won’t release an expensive original animated film and simply hope people will show up.” Interestingly, a less popular adaptation called The Wild Robot is currently outperforming the well-established Transformers One at the box office. For some time now, there has been debate over whether families would return to cinemas for non-sequel animated films. However, it seems that they will, much like audiences are expected to return to cinemas for arthouse movies, comedies, romantic comedies, and other genres.
Every genre/medium/form of cinematic storytelling is dead…until it isn’t. You just have to make something that really strikes a chord at the box office. Of course, original animated family movies aren’t going to make a box-office impact if you send them all to Disney+/Paramount+/Netflix. Put them in theaters and some won’t do well, but some will take off like The Wild Robot. That’s just the nature of the film business. Commit to the theatrical business and you won’t see perfect results every time, but you will see far greater successes than even the “biggest” streaming exclusive movie. Props to the DreamWorks Animation animators and artists for realizing The Wild Robot in such a stunning fashion that the movie became a must-see hit upending norms for what kind of animated family fare “works” on the big screen in 2024.
Weekend after weekend, “Beetlejuice” maintained its frightful allure at the box office, although it no longer held the top spot. In its fourth week in theaters, this Tim Burton film earned another $16.04 million, bringing its domestic total to a staggering $250.1 million. On the other hand, “Transformers One” failed to impress during its second weekend, showing a steep 62% drop. This is typical for a live-action blockbuster derived from renowned source material. However, such a substantial decline is rare for an animated family film. Earning only $9.2 million this week, “Transformers One” has managed to make $39.1 million over ten days – barely surpassing the earnings of “The Wild Robot” during its first three days. Regrettably, “Transformers One” remains one of the year’s most underperforming box office hits.
In the first part of “Devara,” it earned an impressive $5.6 million during its opening weekend, with an astounding $3.9 million coming from just Friday sales. This strong debut further underscores the increasing dominance of Indian blockbusters at the domestic box office. Meanwhile, in the top five this week, we find “Speak No Evil,” a horror remake that managed to hold onto $4.3 million and increased its domestic total to $28.1 million. If it can surpass $35 million domestically, this movie, produced with a budget of $15 million, will be considered a moderate success for Blumhouse and Universal.
It’s no shock that Megalopolis earned only $4 million during its initial domestic release weekend. Given its production cost of $120 million and debut in 1,854 locations, it’s a disappointing return – to put it mildly. To be fair, the film was bankrolled by Francis Ford Coppola himself, unlike Heaven’s Gate which led to United Artists’ bankruptcy. Regrettably, Megalopolis struggled with audiences right from the start. Its marketing strategy left general viewers with a murky understanding of the plot and an overabundance of references to previous Coppola works without providing any compelling reasons to watch this new production. The poster, featuring Adam Driver wielding a hammer against a gleaming backdrop and abundant text highlighting the Megalopolis ensemble cast, did little to pique interest.
Typically, poor reviews didn’t boost the popularity of “Megalopolis” at all. The most intriguing aspect about this film is that it prolongs Adam Driver’s struggle to succeed as a leading man at the box office. Since his role in “BlacKkKlansman” in August 2018, Driver has only starred in one non-“Star Wars” movie (“House of Gucci”) that earned over $35 million domestically in the U.S. It’s not surprising that “Annette” didn’t become a hit, but expensive wide releases like “65” and “Ferrari” should have reached that box office threshold. “Megalopolis” only adds to the challenges Driver has faced while leading movies.
During the 2010s, Hollywood put more focus on film franchises and brand recognition than individual stars like Driver (who also includes Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pine in this group). Now, these actors are finding it difficult to lead successful original films in the 2020s based on their fame alone, rather than relying on popular franchises such as Marvel or Star Wars. If Driver manages to secure a role in Heat 2, it could potentially revive his box office success. However, for now, he’s among many others struggling due to the commercial failure of Megalopolis.
One interesting facet of this weekend wasn’t just that Devara Part 1 beat out Megalopolis, but rather their staggeringly different audiences. While Devara Part 1 rocketed past expectations with a largely non-white audience base, 66% of the Megalopolis opening day crowd was white. Latinx and Black audiences combined for roughly only 23% of its opening weekend audience, a disastrous sum given that those populations have been crucial to many of the biggest hits of the last 20 years. Megalopolis joins several recent costly box office misfires like Horizon: An American Saga – Part One that only courted white moviegoers and paid the price for it. Moviegoing is not “becoming” a market driven by marginalized voices, it already is one. Ignore that reality at your own financial peril.
In a market lacking significant new blockbusters, the duo of Deadpool and Wolverine maintained their strong performance for a third straight week, experiencing only a 30% decrease this weekend. Earning $2.65 million, their total now stands at an impressive $631.2 million after ten weeks. The film My Old Ass expanded to 1,390 theaters this weekend, grossing $2.22 million and averaging $1,600 per theater – a slightly better-than-average performance for wide-release expansions in recent times. Barring an unusually steep drop next weekend, My Old Ass is expected to join only four other 2024 limited releases in reaching the $5 million domestic mark. If it maintains its current trajectory, it will surpass Didi as the second highest-grossing independent film domestically (second only to Thelma) to premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, with the exception of those that had distribution prior to their premiere such as Love Lies Bleeding.
The film “Never Let Go” struggled to bounce back following its initial weekend, earning only $2.2 million in its second week. A 51% decline is tolerable for a horror movie, but given that it fell short of predicted earnings during the previous week, a stronger performance was required. To date, “Never Let Go” has amassed $8.1 million over its first ten days on screen.
remarkably steady, The Substance dropped only 44% in this week’s showing, an exceptional retention rate for a film as intriguingly controversial as it is. There appears to be a strong “can’t-miss” appeal surrounding this production, fueled by its shocking climax and Demi Moore’s mesmerizing portrayal. Earning another $1.8 million over the weekend, The Substance has now amassed $6.8 million in ten days. If it manages to maintain its momentum next week, it could surpass $10 million in North America – a significant milestone both considering the film’s theme and Mubi’s inaugural wide-release title. Should it achieve this mark, it would also join an exclusive club of six 2024 films to gross over $10 million without ever playing in more than 2,000 theaters.
To mark its 20th anniversary, the re-release of Howl’s Moving Castle brought in approximately $1.6 million during its first three days, climbing to $2.2 million when Thursday screenings were included. Over four days, this re-release has already surpassed half of Howl’s original domestic earnings of $4.7 million. To date, the movie has accumulated a total of $6.9 million domestically. The anniversary release of Howl’s Moving Castle sparked renewed interest in Hayao Miyazaki’s work, while Dinesh D’Souza’s latest political documentary, Vindicating Trump, had a dismal start this weekend, earning only $762,000 at 813 theaters, resulting in an average of just over $900 per theater. In contrast, one of D’Souza’s earlier documentaries, 2012’s 2016: Obama’s America, was a massive success with domestic earnings of $33.3 million. However, his subsequent releases, including Death of a Nation in 2018, have underperformed, and Vindicating Trump is expected to struggle to surpass $1.5 million domestically.
The most recent film release by Roadside Attractions, titled “Lee“, had a dismal start over the weekend, earning only $723,000 across 854 cinemas. This equates to approximately $846 per theater, which is a very low figure. The opening weekend earnings are barely higher than those of Kate Winslet’s “Sense & Sensibility“, which was released 29 years ago. Interestingly, Ang Lee’s movie opened in 784 fewer theaters! Following lukewarm reviews from its fall 2023 film festival premiere, the commercial potential for this Ellen Kuras-directed project was always limited. Delaying the release of “Lee” by a year did nothing to improve its box office performance.
The horror film “Azrael” underperformed at the box office during its IFC Films release, earning only $300,012 across 754 theaters, translating to a meager $398 per theater. It appears that the successful release strategy employed for films like “Late Night with the Devil” and “In a Violent Nature” may not apply to horror titles. Conversely, “Saturday Night” had an impressive opening weekend, raking in $265,000 at five locations, equating to a robust $53,000 per theater average. This makes it one of only two limited releases to achieve a $50,000+ opening weekend per theater average, with “Kinds of Kindness” being the other. The film’s strong day-to-day holds indicate that positive word of mouth is boosting its success, though whether this will translate into similar results during its wide release on October 11 remains to be seen. In stark contrast, the expansion of “Faith of Angels” to 324 locations resulted in dismal earnings of $160,470 (for a $495 per theater average), bringing its total gross to only $346,026 after 17 days.
“A Different Man” and “Killer’s Game”: Weekend Box Office Analysis
This past weekend, the highest-grossing ten films earned a total of $83.1 million, similar to the same weekend in 2019 when “Abominable,” another DreamWorks Animation release, reigned as the domestic box office champion. It’s always encouraging to note that 2024 weekends are either matching or surpassing their pre-COVID counterparts. Although this frame didn’t break any records, it did exceed the average for a September weekend slightly. Several art house films, such as “The Substance” and “My Old Ass,” along with “The Wild Robot” opening better than expected, contributed to the decent earnings this weekend.
In September 2024, the total earnings amounted to approximately $580.5 million. With only one day left after this weekend, it seems unlikely that September 2024 will exceed $600 million. However, there’s a possibility that the daily box office gross on Monday, September 30, 2024 could be just enough to surpass the earnings of September 2016, which was $588.6 million, making September 2024 the sixth-highest grossing September domestically. Despite fewer major studio releases and the cancellation of “Transformers One,” this is still a strong performance compared to other post-March 2020 September domestic box office earnings. As of now, the yearly domestic total stands at $6.2 billion. Achieving a yearly total of $8 billion doesn’t seem impossible, and with additional box office revenue in November and December, an even higher target of $8.5 billion for the year is within reach.
As long as there are more Wild Robot games available, I’ll be keeping my game controller charged and ready to play! By the way, I seem to have gotten carried away with my thoughts. I hope you all had a great time reading this gaming column. See you again soon on our gaming adventure. Now, buddy, do you happen to have some more of that delicious soda?
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2024-09-30 16:45