Box office preview: DreamWorks’ ‘The Wild Robot’ takes on Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ and others
For the second weekend in a row, we get an animated feature featuring robots for family audiences, but this week also gets a lot of odds and ends. As has been the case for the past few months, any weekend with just one or two wide releases is then followed by a weekend with way too many movies, and this weekend seems to be one of the latter. Read on for Gold Derby’s box office preview.
The big release of the weekend is “The Wild Robot,” the latest from DreamWorks Animation, based on book by Pete Brown. It stars Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o as a server robot stranded in the wilderness who ends up becoming imprinted on by a baby gosling, having to figure out how to care for it with the help of a crafty fox, voiced by Pedro Pascal. Other characters are voiced by Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, Mark Hamill, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames, with three-time Oscar nominee Chris Sanders (“How to Train Your Dragon,” “Lilo & Stitch”) at the helm.
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DreamWorks Animation has often adapted popular children’s books into animated films, going back to “Shrek,” a movie that won the first Animated Feature Oscar and led to a hugely lucrative franchise for DWA. Animated movies about robots are also fairly standard fair with everything from Brad Bird‘s “The Iron Giant” in 1999, to Baymax in Disney’s “Big Hero Six” and “Ron’s Gone Wrong,” one of the 2021 animated films that bombed theatrically. Earlier this year, Neon released the Oscar-nominated “Robot Dreams,” as another example, but “The Wild Robot” mixes that with talking animals ala last year’s “Migration” from Illumination Entertainment.
SEE 2024 box office hits: Every movie that made more than $100 million
As was the case with Pixar, the theatrical success of DWA’s animated movies got hit pretty badly by COVID when families became accustomed to seeing many of the movies on Universal’s Peacock streamer. “Kung Fu Panda 4” earlier this year was the first DWA movie in five years to open over $50 million, the last one being another sequel, 2019’s “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.” “The Boss Baby” in 2017 was the last non-sequel to open that well.
It’s probably a good time to take a gander at some of DWA’s other recent non-sequels, more than a few of them based on books. Many of them opened over spring break or summer with “The Wild Robot” being DWA’s first September release since “Abominable” in 2019.
6/30/23 – “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” $5.5m (opening), $15.7m (domestic), $46.2m (worldwide)
4/22/22 – “The Bad Guys” $23.9m (o), $97.5m (d), $250.9m (w)
9/27/19 – “Abominable” $20.6 (o), $60.8m (d), $188.7m (w)
6/2/17 – “Captain Underpants” $23.8m (o), $73.9m (d), $128.4m (w)
3/31/17 – “The Boss Baby” $50.2m (o), $175m (d), $527.9m (w)
11/4/16 – “Trolls” $46.6m (o), $153.9m (d), $342.8m (w)
3/27/15 – “Home” $52.1m (o), $177.4m (d), $386m (w)
11/21/12 – “Rise of the Guardians” $23.8m (o), $103.4m (d), $306.9m (w)
3/26/10 – “How to Train Your Dragon” $43.7m (o), $217.5m (d), $494.9m (w)
It’s a little concerning to see how poorly “Transformers One” opened last weekend, since that received great reviews AND was based on a well-known IP. Even with fantastic Pixar-level reviews and currently being the presumptive favorite to win the Animated Feature Oscar, “The Wild Robot” might suffer for not being a sequel, though it should be good for close to $30 million this weekend with a chance of making upwards of $100 million in North America.
The other movie to keep an eye out for is the latest Telugu-language action epic from Prathyangira Cinemas with “Devara Part 1” which has a lot of anticipation in the Indo-American community and has already sold a lot of tickets. The title character is played by N.T. Rama Rao Jr. from the massive Telugu hit “RRR,” as well as popular actor, Saif Ali Khan.
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The Southern portion of India has been delivering some massive hits, such as “Kalki 2898-AD,” which opened with $11.2 million in 1,049 theaters its first four days earlier this year, and we’re regularly seeing even bigger openings like 2023’s “Jawan” and “Pathaan,” both opening with over $6 million in less than 1,000 theaters. There’s also the aforementioned “RRR,” which opened with $9.5 million in March 2022, but then received a rerelease in the summer that helped lead it to an Oscar win for Best Original Song.
Although “Devara Part 1” is opening on Thursday, it should still have a decent three-day opening in the $5 to $7 million range, which would make it a significant spoiler this weekend to break into the top five.
Francis Ford Coppola makes his return to movie theaters with his long-gestating futuristic film, “Megalopolis.” It stars Adam Driver as inventor and architect Cesar Catilina, who gets into a conflict with Franklyn Cicero, the greedy mayor of New Rome, as played by Giancarlo Esposito from “Better Call Saul.” Nathalie Emmanuel plays the mayor’s daughter Julia, and the massive ensemble cast includes Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Laurence Fishburne (whose earliest film was Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now”), Jon Voight, Kathryn Hunter, and Coppola’s direct family members, Talia Shire and Jason Schwartzman.
Coppola has been trying to make this movie seemingly for decades, and it finally got made and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival with mixed reviews that are currently at 51% on Rotten Tomatoes. (I expect that rating to go down as more U.S. film critics see it.) Of course, the big draw for older moviegoers might be the Oscar-winning Coppola at the helm, but Lionsgate is hoping the movie might entice curious younger moviegoers with trailers that make it look like a cross between “The Matrix” and “Caligula.”
Even so, Lionsgate is only opening the movie in roughly 1,600 theaters, although those theaters will also include IMAX theaters (sharing with “The Wild Robot” *and* “Devara”), but it also received a special IMAX preview on Monday night. Unfortunately, it seems like Coppola’s long absence and those mixed reviews might keep “Megalopolis” from making more than $6 or $7 million this weekend, putting it in a dead heat to take third place against “Devara.”
Amazon MGM will also be expanding Megan Park‘s “My Old Ass,” starring Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza, nationwide this weekend into 1,200 theaters, which may allow it to sneak into the Top 10 with somewhere between $1 million and $1.5 million.
“Azrael” is a new futuristic horror film from E.L. Katz (“Cheap Thrills”) starring Samara Weaving as the title character, who is due to be sacrificed in a female-led community where no one speaks. Written by Simon Barrett (“The Guest”), IFC Films will release this into around 750 theaters this weekend ahead of it streaming on Shudder, and we’ll have to see if this can break into the top 10.
Kate Winslet stars in “Lee,” the biopic about war photographer Lee Miller, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker and cinematographer Ellen Kuras, which is being released wide by Roadside Attractions, also into an unknown number of theaters. This also might have trouble getting into the Top 10.
New distributor Whiskey Creek enters this mix by releasing Simon Hacker‘s indie dramedy “Notice to Quit” into 400+ theaters on Friday. It stars Michael Zegen from “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” as a struggling New York realtor trying to prevent his own eviction, as he travels around New York with his young daughter (Kasey Bella Suarez) trying to scrounge up money.
Sony will be releasing Jason Reitman‘s ensemble comedy, “Saturday Night,” about the 90 minutes leading up to the charter installment of the popular NBC late night show on October 11, 1975, into select theaters this weekend, but it will expand nationwide next month, so we’ll cover it in future previews.
Lionsgate is releasing another horror film this weekend with Colm McCarthy‘s “Bagman,” starring Sam Claflin as a father trying to protect his family from a threat from his own childhood. At one point, it was supposed to be wide, but now it’s limited.
Check back on Sunday to see if “The Wild Robot” can break the curse of animated non-sequels doing well theatrically.
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