‘The Wild Robot’ Had A Wild Sixth Weekend At The Box Office
Dreamworks Animation’s The Wild Robot continues to confound box office pundits with a fantastically surprising theatrical run, even weeks after the film’s release on digital platforms.
In its 6th weekend at the U.S. box office, the Chris Sanders film moved from third place back into second place with $7.4 million. More remarkably, the film actually grossed a greater amount than it did the previous weekend ($6.8m), a rarity for any film so deep into its theatrical run, much less a film that is already available to rent or own on digital. The film’s U.S. total is now $121.3m, making it the year’s fourth-highest-grossing animated feature, behind a trio of franchise titles: Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4, and Kung Fu Panda 4.
A strong long-tail isn’t a new phenomenon for Dreamworks. Back in 2022, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish had an unremarkable holiday opening weekend of $20m before going on to gross over nine times its debut. The Wild Robot’s current multiple of 3.3x is more in line with standard feature animation multiples, but the way it’s doing it, with a growing box office in its sixth weekend, is anything but normal.
Internationally, Wild Robot earned an additional $15.7m last weekend, expanding its foreign tally to $147.6m. Globally, the film has now grossed $269.1m.
A new release, Aniventure and Cinesite’s Hitpig! was launched by Viva Pictures in 2,055 theaters. The Cinzia Angelini/David Feiss-directed film opened in 13th place with a $1.1m launch. While the $561 per-theater average is nothing to write home about, Hitpig! has already become the second-highest grossing theatrical release for Viva Pictures, behind The Amazing Maurice’s $4.3m run in 2023.
Theatrical is just one component of Viva’s overall strategy, which specializes in the domestic distribution of family-oriented cg films. A spokesperson for the company told Cartoon Brew about the launch: “Viva Kids continues to be the studio that can bring independent animation titles to wide theatrical audiences and with 2,000 screens showing Hitpig!, we offer an incredible opportunity for indie animation titles to reach kids and family audiences on the big screen.”
Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail expanded this past weekend from 5 to 24 theaters, but was unable to hold its stellar per-theater average from the first weekend. The film still earned $69,149 for a quite respectable $2,881 per-theater average. The IFC Films release is now up to $143,990, with additional expansion to come.
The Pharrell Williams animated Lego doc Piece by Piece continued to sink fast, earning just $336K in its fourth weekend. Its total now stands at $9.4m.
Other animated titles currently in the marketplace include Transformers One ($389K weekend, $58.5m total), The Nightmare Before Christmas re-release ($82K weekend, $6m total), and My Hero Academia: You’re Next ($16K weekend, $5m total).
