‘Incredibles 2’ Smashes U.S. Animation Record

After an 11-year-sabbatical from animation, during which time he explored live-action filmmaking, Brad Bird has made a triumphant return to cartoondom by breaking the all-time domestic box office record for the opening weekend of an animated film.

The Incredibles 2 grossed $182.6 million over the weekend, handily topping the previous record-holder, Finding Dory, which launched with $135 million in 2016. Bird’s sequel beat the inflation-adjusted animation record-holder as well — that would be Shrek the Third, whose 2007 opening stands at an adjusted gross of $151 million.

The opening weekend of Incredibles 2, the 8th-biggest of all-time, can be attributed not only to the pent-up demand for another film about the Parr superhero family, but also the demand for animated films themselves. Bizarrely, there has not been a major animation release in 2,000+ theaters since Sherlock Gnomes was released on March 23. Why haven’t the major studios released a film in nearly three months? There’s no conspiracy, but it’s simply a reminder of how underrepresented animation is at the domestic box office.

To put the opening weekend of Incredibles 2 in perspective, the film already outgrossed the entire box office runs of other recent Pixar films, such as The Good Dinosaur ($123 million) and Cars 3 ($152.9 million). The film now has a chance of becoming the first animated feature to reach $500 million at the domestic box office (the domestic record holder for animation is Finding Dory with $486.3 million).

Internationally, Incredibles 2 opened with $12.3m in Mexico, $7.7m in Australia, $5.4m in Russia, and $3m in Argentina, among other countries. The film has grossed $53.1m internationally from 25 territories, for a global total of $235.8 million.