'The Wild Robot' Tops The Box Office With a Promising $11.3 Million Friday
If it legs out like a normal (well-reviewed, well-received) DWA toon, the Lupita Nyong'o-starring sci-fi melodrama may top $35 million for the weekend.
Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot isn’t technically an original animated film, as it’s based on Peter Brown’s novel. However, we know the difference between a toon based on a well-liked but not globally famous novel (which is the case with many DreamWorks toons such as Shrek, Home, and The Boss Baby) and an animated adaptation of Super Mario Bros. or however you classify Lightyear. So, with the asterisk firmly established, it’s a big deal that DreamWorks Animation’s “new to you” The Wild Robot opened with $11.32 million yesterday. If it tops $30 million for the weekend, it’ll be above the $29 million debut for Pixar’s Elemental in June 2023. That will give it the biggest opening weekend since (ironically) Pixar’s Onward ($39 million a week before the world shut down in March of 2020) for an original or new-to-you animated feature.
If I’m expecting The Wild Robot to end its weekend with closer to $35 million (or fuck it, let’s go nuts and hope for $40 million), it’s because the film has “everything” working in its favor. The reviews have been superb, with many calling it the best DreamWorks Animation film ever (cough-Kung Fu Panda 2-cough) and most calling it among the better DWA toons in recent years (alongside Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, absolutely). It nabbed an A from CinemaScore, and it’s a high-quality DWA film (it’s about a protagonist who wants to be more than their preordained status) that plays in the Pixar sandbox (it’s more likely to make parents cry than kids). Meanwhile, Lupita Nyong’o is an A+ added value element to a well-received genre film and might be a genuine “butts in seats” draw if she worked more often.
Universal has been selling the hell out of the $78 million-budgeted sci-fi melodrama as a return to form for DWA. Ironically, it’s been exactly five years since none of you schmucks showed up to (the very underrated) Abominable. That was one of a slew of post-Coco “not a sequel or an adaptation of a mega-bucks IP” animated films to struggle since 2018. Meanwhile, expectations (along with production budgets) had declined for most DWA fare to the point where a $23 million launch for The Bad Guys was “good enough.” So if you’re wondering why Universal will be popping balloons for a $35 million debut while Disney mourned a $51 million launch for Lightyear (which, to be fair, we all knew would be a Watchmen/The Flash-style one-weekend wonder) or a $29 million debut for Elemental, heavy is the head that wears the crown.
When it was a two-day battle between Pixar and DreamWorks for animation supremacy in the 2000s, DWA toons like Kung Fu Panda and Monsters Vs. Aliens would open with over/under $60 million and leg out to over/under $200 million domestic almost out of habit. If you recall, the initial How to Train Your Dragon was (wrongly, even then) tagged as a disappointment for only opening with $43 million just after the (also in 3-D) Clash of the Titans logged a $60 million debut. The punditry often slagged DWA for “underwhelming” openings and didn’t notice when the films legged out hard globally. The good news – no one expects DWA toons to open with $60 million anymore. The bad news... same. However, for better or worse, the budgets under Comcast have declined to where most DWA toons cost closer to $75 million than $175 million.
Whether or not The Wild Robot pulls weekend legs closer to Captain Underpants ($24 million from a $8 million Friday) or How to Train Your Dragon ($44 million/$12 million), we should also remember that DWA’ 28 originals (non-sequel/spin-off flicks) have *averaged* a 3.9x weekend-to-final multiplier. That includes year-end openers like The Prince of Egypt ($100 million from a $14 million launch) in 1998 and more recent non-sequels like The Bad Guys (still a $97 million finish from a $24 million launch in April of 2022), but it’s still a stunning track record. As someone who has A) been mourning a near-decade commercial decline for “original” animated films (although Soul and Encanto likely would have been blockbusters in conventional times) and B) begging DreamWorks to make more films like How to Train Your Dragon *alongside* The Boss Baby, this is what hope feels like.
NOTE - I initially stated in my review that The Wild Robot was the last DWA toon to be animated in-house. I’ve been assured that upcoming films will still be done 70-80% locally. Trust but verify.