The Wild Robot thrives at the box office while Megalopolis collapses

Now this here story I'm about to unfold took place back in the final weekend of September 2024 - just about the time of our conflict with Zaslav and the streamers. I only mention it because sometimes there's a movie... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a movie. And I'm talkin' about The Wild Robot here. Sometimes, there's a movie, well, they’re the movie for their time and place. They fit right in there. And that's The Wild Robot, in the final weekend of 2024. And even while DreamWorks Animation is significantly laying off its workers – and the studio brass are doing most certainly that. Quite possibly the worst decision in animation in 2024, which would place it high in the runnin' for the worst entertainment decision in 2024.

But sometimes there's a movie, sometimes, there's a movie. Aw. I lost my train of thought here. But... aw, hell. I've done introduced The Wild Robot enough.

Perhaps The Wild Robot does deserve the distinction of “hero” this weekend thanks to its exciting reclamation of original animation’s box office viability in 2024. The latest Chris Sanders directorial effort opened to $35 million domestically, the first time a non-sequel animated movie opened to $30+ million since theaters shut down for COVID in March 2020. Impressively, that opening fares quite nicely compared to pre-COVID DreamWorks movies. It's on par with the debuts of Bee Movie and Over the Hedge, for instance, and only opened 18% behind The Croods (also directed by Sanders). Notably, this title cost $78 million to make, meaning it was much cheaper than the $125-175 million budgets of most DreamWorks movies made from 2007 to 2019.

The Wild Robot also scored the biggest non-Hotel Transylvania opening weekend ever for an animated feature in September. The $20-25 million opening weekend range most other non-Sony Pictures Animation animated titles experienced opening in late September (including last weekend’s Transformers One) didn’t befall The Wild Robot. Everything ended up falling nicely into place for Robot in its release. The feature’s distinctive animation style and blend of humor and pathos in its marketing made it look appealing to families, for starters. Meanwhile, Transformer One last week becoming an adult-skewing fans-only property meant that The Wild Robot was, by default, the big family movie property in town. Great buzz (Robot scored an A CinemaScore grade as well as euphoric reviews) ensured its terrific debut.

Last year, Paramount Pictures head Brian Robbins declared that the studio would no longer release original animated features into theaters. "We’re not going to release an expensive original animated movie and just pray people will come," he said. Now, The Wild Robot (which is based on a book, but not an exceedingly well-known one) is triumphing over Transformers One at the box office. There’s been years of (somewhat understandable) speculation over the last few years on whether or not family audiences will come back to theaters for non-sequel animated titles. They will, though, just like audiences will come back out to theaters for arthouse, comedies, rom-coms, or anything else.

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.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice kept scaring up respectable numbers even as it relinquished the number one spot at the box office. In its fourth weekend of release, this Tim Burton movie grossed another $16.04 million for a $250.1 million domestic total. Unfortunately, Transformers One continued to play like a standard fan-driven movie this weekend with a 62% second-weekend plunge. That’s not out of the ordinary for a live-action tentpole based on famous source material. That is, however, a highly unusual drop for a family-oriented animated movie. Grossing just $9.2 million this frame, Transformers One has grossed $39.1 million over ten days (barely above what The Wild Robot grossed over its first three days), Transformers One continues to be one of the year’s bigger box office underperformers.

Devara Part 1 grossed $5.6 million in its incredibly frontloaded opening weekend ($3.9 million of that debut came from Friday alone). Still, this was a solid haul that once again reaffirmed how far blockbusters from India's various cinema sectors have come in domestic box office prowess. Rounding out the top five this weekend was Speak No Evil. That horror remake only dipped 26% this frame to gross $4.3 million and secured a $28.1 million domestic total. If this can squeak past $35 million domestically, then this $15 million budgeted horror film will be a decent performer for Blumhouse and Universal.

Unsurprisingly, Megalopolis grossed only $4 million over its domestic opening weekend. It's a dismal haul for a feature that cost $120 million to make and opened in 1,854 locations. That’s just 8% above the opening of Francis Ford Coppola’s Tucker: The Man and his Dream from 36 years ago (and that title was playing in 1,164 fewer locations!). Then again, this whole thing was financed by Coppola, so it's a bit different than usual from, say, a Heaven's Gate, which bankrupted United Artists. Megalopolis never had a prayer of scoring with audiences. The feature's marketing campaign offered general audiences only a vague impression of the plot and too many callbacks to earlier Coppola works while never giving people a reason to see this new feature. Just look at that poster, which only featured Adam Driver wielding a hammer against a glistening background and lots of text emphasizing the members of the Megalopolis ensemble cast.

Generally, bleak reviews didn’t help the title one iota catch on. The only other really interesting element of Megalopolis is how it continues Adam Driver's box office cold streak as a leading man. Since BlacKkKlansman in August 2018, Driver's only appeared in one non-Star Wars movie (House of Gucci) that's grossed more than $35 million domestically. While it's no shocker that Annette didn't become a sensation, costly wide releases like 65 and Ferrari certainly should've hit that box office threshold. Megalopolis only compounds the problems Driver’s had anchoring movies.  

Hollywood spent the 2010s emphasizing brands over movie stars. Now, Driver is one of many leading men from that era (along with Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pine) struggling in the 2020s to successfully headline original features relying on the draw of famous faces, not the Marvel or Star Wars logos. Perhaps if Driver does end up getting cast in Heat 2, that’ll get his box office career back on track. For now, the man behind Abraham H. Parnassus is just one of many people suffering from the box office 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.

With no other major action blockbusters in the marketplace, Deadpool & Wolverine once again held fabulously for its third consecutive weekend-to-weekend decline of 30% or less. Dipping just 30% this weekend, Deadpool & Wolverine grossed another $2.65 million for a ten-week total of $631.2 million. My Old Ass grossed $2.22 million in its expansion to 1,390 theaters this weekend for a $1,600 per theater average. Nothing astonishing, but also a tad better than other wide-release expansions in recent years. Barring a historically terrible plummet next weekend, My Old Ass, which has grossed $2.8 million after 17 days of release, should become only the fourth 2024 limited release to crack $5 million domestically. It’s also on track to surpass Didi as the second highest-grossing indie movie domestically (behind only Thelma) to premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. That excludes 2024 Sundance premieres that already had distribution before their premiere like Love Lies Bleeding.

Never Let Go failed to recover from its opening weekend with a $2.2 million second weekend. A 51% drop isn't awful for a horror feature, but after opening below expectations last frame, a better hold was needed. Never Let Go has grossed $8.1 million after ten days of release.

Astonishingly, The Substance dipped just 44% this frame, an astonishingly good hold for a movie so excitingly provocative. There seems to be a mild "must-see" factor hovering around this title thanks to its unhinged finale and captivating Demi Moore performance. Grossing another $1.8 million this weekend, The Substance has grossed $6.8 million after ten days. If it can not collapse next weekend, it should crack $10 million in North America. That’d be an impressive feat both given the film's subject matter and this being distributor Mubi's first wide-release title. If it crossed that threshold, it’d also become only the sixth 2024 movie to gross $10+ million despite never reaching 2,000+ theaters.

The 20th-anniversary re-release of Howl’s Moving Castle took in $1.6 million over the three-day frame, with this re-release scoring $2.2 million counting its Thursday showings. Over four days, this release has already earned more than half of Howl's original $4.7 million domestic haul. Over its lifetime, Howl's Moving Castle has now grossed $6.9 million domestically. While Miyazaki's works continued to stir up audience interest, a former documentary cinema box office powerhouse tumbled mightily this frame. Dinesh D'Souza's latest fascist right-wing nonsense documentary Vindicating Trump grossed just $762,000 this weekend at 813 theaters for a dismal $937 per theater average. Back in 2012, D'Souza scored a surprise documentary hit with 2016: Obama's America, which grossed a whopping $33.3 million domestically. 2018's Death of a Nation, though, flopped with just $5.8 million. Now his latest documentary had a terrible showing for a movie opening in wide release. If it gets much higher than $1.5 million domestically, it'll be a miracle.

Lee was the latest Roadside Attractions release to fail mightily immediately opening in wide release and grossing just $723,000 this weekend at 854 locations for roughly $846 per theater. An abysmal debut that's only slightly higher than the opening weekend of leading lady Kate Winslet's Sense & Sensibility from 29 years ago (and that Ang Lee movie opened in 784 fewer theaters!) After getting tepid reviews from its fall 2023 film festival premiere, the commercial prospects for this Ellen Kuras directorial effort were always limited. Waiting a year to drop Lee didn’t help its box office prospects one bit.

Azrael was the latest IFC Films horror-wide release to struggle at the box office, with this title grossing just $300,012 at 754 locations for a $398 per theater average. IFC must realize that the release strategy that worked so well on Late Night with the Devil and In a Violent Nature won't work with any horror title. Saturday Night got off to a rocking start in its domestic debut, grossing $265,000 at five locations for a per-theater average of $53,000. It's only the second limited release to score a $50,000+ opening weekend per theater average, following Kinds of Kindness. Its terrific day-to-day holds suggest strong word of mouth is working in this Jason Reitman directorial effort’s favor. Whether or not that’ll translate into similar success in its October 11 wide release, well, that's still up in the air. In sharp contrast to Saturday Night, Faith of Angels stumbled in its expansion to 324 locations. Grossing just $160,470 (for a $495 per theater average), Angels has grossed just $346,026 after 17 days.

A Different Man expanded to 23 locations this weekend and grossed $64,053 for a worrisome $2,785 per theater average. With just $139,573 after ten days of domestic play, this one doesn't seem poised to expand much further in its theatrical footprint. Killer's Game plummeted 94% this weekend after losing 2,447 theaters. Grossing just $58,000, this Dave Bautista action feature has grossed just $5.37 million. By the way, is down to just 13 theaters now. It grossed just $11,464 this frame (a 73% plunge from last weekend) for a $2.75 million domestic total. Now in its 12th weekend of release, A24's release strategy for this title continues to make no sense. After refusing to expand the feature back in August, now it's languishing in the autumn box office space. Sing Sing deserver better.

The top ten movies this weekend grossed $83.1 million, on par with this same weekend in 2019 when Abominable (another DreamWorks Animation title) topped the domestic box office. Always good to see 2024 domestic weekends either equal to or improving on pre-COVID frames. While not a record-shattering frame, it is a bit above average for a September weekend. Some solid arthouse performers (The Substance and My Old Ass namely) as well as The Wild Robot opening above expectations helped this weekend reach decent numbers.

This month has grossed $580.5 million. With only one day left in the month after this weekend, September 2024 won't hit $600+ million. However, there's a chance Monday, September 30, 2024's daily box office gross could make just enough to put the month's haul narrowly ahead of September 2016's $588.6 million haul. That would make September 2024 the sixth-biggest September ever domestically. The month would've been bigger with more major studio releases and Transformers One not biting the dust, but this is still a solid number way above other post-March 2020 September domestic box office hauls. 2024's yearly domestic total is now at $6.2 billion. Hitting $8 billion for the entire year doesn't seem impossible. Heck, if we can get some extra box office juice going in November and December, an $8.5 billion final total for the year isn't impossible.  

So long as we get more Wild Robot’s in the marketplace, we’ll…ah, look at me. I'm ramblin' again. Well, I hope you folks enjoyed yourselves in this here box office column. Catch you on down the trail. Say, friend, ya got any more of that good sarsaparilla?