Russians Love CG Cartoons, Especially DreamWorks

Megamind opens in US theaters today, but the film already premiered in Russia last week. The DreamWorks feature posted a healthy $6.9 million opening in Russia and was the country’s number one film at the box office. Earlier DreamWorks features also fared well this year–How to Train Your Dragon launched with $7.3 million and Shrek Forever After with $19.7 million.

Russians are apparently hungry for CG animation of any kind, and notably, they’re getting to see the big Hollywood releases before their American debuts. Open Season 3, which won’t appear in the US until next year, opened theatrically in Russia two weeks ago, and it too was the number one film at the box office, taking in $2.3 million. I swear, it’s like some bizarro universe where every animated film does well. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole opened at number one with $3.4 million, Despicable Me at number two with $3.3 million, and Alpha and Omega also at number two with $1.6 million. In fact, just about the only computer animated feature the Russians haven’t liked this year is Toy Story 3, which opened with $2.3 million and finished its box office run with a weak $6.6 million–or less than the opening weekend of Megamind.

In case you’re curious, here’s the Russian poster for Open Season 3:

(Box office data from Box Office Mojo)