SURPRISE! ‘Monster Trucks’ Beat ‘Rogue One’ At the Monday Box Office [Updated]

Defying critics, box office pundits, and even the studio that made the film, Chris Wedge’s live-action/cg hybrid Monster Trucks landed in third place at the box office today with an estimated $4.1 million.

If the number holds when final figures are released on Tuesday, that would be good enough for a third-place Monday, behind Hidden Figures and Sing, and beating out Rogue One, which would take fourth place with $3.8 million. Over the four-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Monster Trucks will end up in sixth place with $15 million. [UPDATE: Paramount overestimated the Monday gross on Monster Trucks by nearly a million dollars. The numbers didn’t hold, and Rogue One edged it out $3,338,523 to $3,223,334.]

While the film won’t come anywhere close to recouping its $125 million production cost, a $15 million opening would still be remarkable considering that Paramount had written off the film months ago as a total loss and decided not to promote it as they would a typical tent-pole. In that light, a $15 million four-day suggests that there was actually greater demand for this film than anyone had anticipated. It certainly could have opened much lower, as other January family releases have shown, like 2015’s Strange Magic which launched in over 3,000 theaters with just $5.5 million, and Norm of the North which opened with $6.8 million in 2016.

Some other surprising Monster Trucks details: The people who saw the film actually liked it, and the film received an “A” Cinemascore from audiences who were polled. Apparently, lots of dads took their children to the film, with the audience made up of 53% males, and 55% under 18. Per social media tracking firm Relishmix:

“Monster Trucks is reaching its target audience of parents with small children, many of whom are saying how excited their son will be to see this movie in theaters. While convo is light in its volume compared to other family animated movies, overall, it’s positive.”

In other box office news, Illumination’s Sing has officially surpassed Disney’s Moana at the domestic box office. After the four-day weekend, Sing is at an estimated $238.4M, while Moana is at $233.3M. This now assures that Sing will be 2016’s 10th-highest-grossing domestic film, with Moana taking 11th place.

Globally, Sing has grossed $402.7M to date; Moana has grossed $484.6M.