Oct 12, 2024

Historic Weekend Box Office: 5 of the Top 10 Animated Feature Films

This weekend, while Hollywood box office pundits are occupied with such trivial topics as the slightly better-than-expected opening of the live-action horror film “Terrifier 3,” they are witnessing a historic box office event. For perhaps the first time in history, five animated feature films made the top 10 at the U.S. box office.

I don't recall ever seeing four, much less five, animated films in the top 10. Whether this has ever happened before remains to be seen until some intrepid box office historian digs into the data, but for now, we're willing to bet that this is the first landmark event in U.S. box office history.

It's still Saturday, so final numbers are not yet available, but studios already have a pretty good idea of where they stand in the top 10. Here are the five animated feature films and their U.S. box office rankings: “Wild Robot” (#2), “Transformers One” (#5), “Piece by Piece” (#6), “My Hero Academia” (#8), “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (#9). [UPDATE: “Piece by Piece” passed “Transformers One” in the final weekend rankings, switching places between the two films.]

This weekend's box office results are just the latest evidence to support the claim that animation is evolving in the US market. Animated films in the U.S. have long been viewed as one of two things: a broad four-quadrant product that appeals to the entire family and is considered a failure if it doesn't make a big hit, or an obscure indie/foreign production that contributes little to the box office.

Now we are beginning to find a middle ground between these two extremes. The new films are documentaries, hand-drawn foreign films imported from Japan, and revivals of decades-old stop-motion films. These are the types of films that would not have appeared on any top ten list ten or twenty years ago, but theatrical animation has matured in the marketplace and the demand for animated films has expanded to the point where niche titles can generate significant revenues even when several other animated films are being released theatrically. .

Now let's delve into the top 10 animated feature films from new releases:

First up is the Morgan Neville documentary “Piece by Piece,” released by Universal's Focus Features. This quirky biopic of music star Pharrell Williams has garnered attention for its Lego CG-style approach to documenting Williams' rise to the top of the music industry; produced for $16 million, the film was released in 1,865 theaters and is expected to gross approximately $3.5 million [UPDATE: Final estimate $3.8 million]. Focus had projected an opening weekend box office of $5 million to $7 million.

But look at it from another perspective: Piece by Piece will be the highest-grossing animated documentary in U.S. history by the weekend. Animated documentaries traditionally open in the five- to six-figure range, not the multi-million dollar range. No animated documentary has ever made it into the top 50 at the box office. This signals the beginning of more high-profile feature-length animated documentaries.

This soft opening, however, does cast a pall over the future of the awards season for Piece by Piece. Despite a hunch that the film could be a contender for the year-end Best Animated Feature award, it simply hasn't generated much buzz; Piece by Piece started politely but modestly at Telluride, with a critical rating of only 81% at Rotten Tomatoes, while the film's score of 81% at the box office was only a little above the top of the list. Audiences liked the film more, with an RT score of 92%, but not the expected number. This unconventional title may still have long legs at the box office, but its chances of winning awards are questionable.

Okamura Tensai's My Hero Academia: My Hero Academia: You're Next, distributed by Toho International, is the fourth U.S. theatrical release of the popular franchise set in a world where the majority of people have super powers. 1,845 screens and is currently targeting approximately $3 million. Past opening weekends for the franchise's U.S. releases include: 2018's “MHA: Two Heroes” ($1.3 million), 2020's “MHA: Heroes Rising” ($5.8 million), and 2021's “MHA: World Heroes' Mission” ( ($6.2 million). The previous three films were released by Funimation, but Japan's Toho has taken over U.S. distribution of this fourth film as part of its new strategy to expand into North America.

The final new release of the weekend was Henry Selick's “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” a 31-year-old stop-motion Disney film that has been frequently re-released around Halloween. Last year's 30th anniversary re-release grossed $4.2 million on opening weekend and $9.8 million at the box office. This re-release is likely to be around $2.1 million [UPDATE: final estimate $2.3 million] in 1,700 theaters. The film has grossed nearly $90 million in its lifetime since the Tim Burton-developed project was first released in 1993.

The highest-grossing animated film this past weekend was Chris Sanders' The Wild Robot, which is aiming for about $13.8 million in its third weekend (UPDATE: estimated final gross $13.4 million). If those numbers hold, the Oscar contender's marquee film will be on track for an $84.1 million box office in its third weekend. [DreamWorks Animation's feature film is doing very well, down just 27% from the previous weekend. It will surpass WB's Joker sequel, which just opened last weekend.

Paramount and Josh Cooley's Transformers One is expected to gross $4.1 million in its fourth weekend (UPDATE: final estimate $3.6 million). The film surpassed the $50 million mark yesterday, but expectations were clearly high as the $75 million film was intended to launch a new animated franchise, according to producers. According to the producers, the film was intended to launch a new animation franchise.

Even if not all of the films have been as strong as hoped, the expansion of the animation market is a remarkable development worth celebrating. This weekend marks a major turning point for theatrical animation, suggesting that the future of the medium is brighter than ever.