‘Playmobil: The Movie’ Continues On Path To Becoming Legendary Box Office Disaster

Following its second weekend, it’s safe to claim On Animation’s Playmobil: The Movie as one of the most expensive animation box office disasters of all-time. Someone’s going to have to do the math at some point to figure out just how much money the film has lost, but it has now clearly joined the ignominious pantheon of feature-length cartoon bombs like Mars Needs Moms, Titan A.E., and Delgo.

Playmobil grossed a meager $143,735 in its second weekend from 2,337 theaters, good for 23rd place at the North American box office. The film, with a reported budget of $75 million and distributed stateside by STX Entertainment, screened a single time per day at most theaters, with few theaters running it beyond three daily screenings. The film plummeted 74% from an already rough first weekend, and after 10 days, it remains about $33,500 shy of the $1 million mark. [NOTE: This paragraph has been updated with final weekend box office numbers.]

Words seem inadequate to explain how poorly this film has done at the box office. There have been other bombs this year – last month, for example, we watched Arctic Dogs make its feeble debut, yet even that film has grossed over five times the earnings of Playmobil.

At the end of the day, Playmobil will be the worst-performing title of all-time to launch in as many theaters (2,377) as this film did. The only two films that opened in 2,000+ theaters whose final box office total may be less than Playmobil are The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure and Delgo, but when the grosses of those earlier films are adjusted for inflation, Playmobil could still wind up claiming the absolute bottom for any first-run feature film opening in 2,000 or more theaters.