As Live-Action Films Continue To Falter At Box Office, ‘The Wild Robot’ Holds Strong At #2

For the second weekend in a row, Dreamworks Animation’s The Wild Robot has beaten the previous week’s #1 movie, despite having been in theaters longer than either of those films.

Last weekend’s #1 film, Terrifier 3, slipped to #3rd place this weekend, while The Wild Robot remained in the #2 position. The same thing happened with Joker: Folie à Deux, which opened at #1, and then slipped behind Wild Robot in its second weekend.

The Wild Robot has now kept the #2 spot for three straight weekends, after debuting in first place during its opening weekend. Remarkably, it managed this feat despite also being released on digital platforms last Tuesday.

In its fourth weekend, the Chris Sanders film grossed an estimated $10.1 million, slipping a slight 28% from its third weekend. The film has now pushed past the century mark in the States with $101.7m, with an additional $94.3m abroad, for a running total of $196m.

After last weekend’s record-setting performance of animated features, with five animated films appearing the top ten, there were again four animated films in the top 10.

Besides The Wild Robot, there was Focus Features’ documentary Piece by Piece (#7, est. $2.1m weekend, $7.6m total), Paramount’s Transformers One (#8, est. $1.9m weekend, $56.6m total), and Disney’s holiday re-release of The Nightmare Before Christmas (#10, est. $1.1m weekend, $4.8m total during current release).

Toho’s My Hero Academia: You’re Next, which was in the top 10 last weekend, slipped to 16th place, with an estimated $650,000 and a running total of $4.6m.

It has been highly uncommon in years past to have four or five animated films all in the top 10 at the same time, but the animation industry has played a key (and largely unacknowledged) role in propping up the entire Hollywood theatrical exhibition industry in 2024. In fact, after this weekend, the top eight animation releases of the year now account for over 25% of annual U.S. theatrical grosses to date.

With major animation releases like Moana 2, Mufasa: The Lion King, and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim still to release later in the year, animated features could reach a record-setting portion of the overall U.S. box office in 2024. It’s an important story that more people should be paying attention to.