‘Hoppers’ Builds Bigger Box Office With $46 Million Opening, But ‘The Bride!’ Gets Gunned Down With $7 Million
Disney/Pixar’s “Hoppers” took a big leap at the box office thanks to its strong word-of-mouth. After making $19 million on Saturday from 4,000 theaters, Daniel Chong’s animated film is now set for a $46 million domestic and $88 million global opening weekend.
It’s the highest opening for an original Hollywood animated film since 2017, topping the $39.1 million of fellow Pixar film “Onward” just before theaters entered the pandemic shutdown in 2020.
If “Hoppers” can overperform again on Sunday, it could get closer to the $50.8 million unadjusted 3-day opening of “Coco,” which opened on Thanksgiving weekend in 2017.
While not as big as the openings of some of the top original animated hits of the 2010s like “Zootopia” ($75 million), “Inside Out” ($90 million) or “The Secret Life of Pets” ($104 million), “Hoppers,” along with Sony Animation’s “Goat,” have been a significant step forward for original animation after years of low box office returns.
Sporting 94% critics and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes and an A on CinemaScore, “Hoppers” has already shown signs of growing interest and should be able to leg out well over the next three weeks as kids go on spring break. While the release of Universal/Illumination’s “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” may cut those legs short in April, a domestic run exceeding the $154 million of Pixar’s summer 2023 film “Elemental” is well within reach.
Now for the bad news of the weekend: Warner Bros.’ “The Bride!” has bombed this weekend, earning a poor $7.3 million domestic and $13.6 million global opening. The film will not make back its production budget, which is reported to be at least $80 million.
It’s a rough end to Warner Bros.’ winning streak of nine No. 1 hit films which started last spring with “A Minecraft Movie” and “Sinners” and continued to last month with the decent run of MRC/LuckyChap’s “Wuthering Heights,” which has passed $200 million worldwide and has $78.8 million domestic after four weekends.
But “The Bride!” hasn’t been able to win over enough of the audience, holding Rotten Tomatoes scores of 60% critics and 72% audience along with a limp C+ on CinemaScore. Reviews for the film have been wide ranging, but even some of the positive reviews have criticized the film for having a scattershot execution of its macabre story of two undead outcasts on the run in 1930s Chicago.
With the poor start of “The Bride!”, Paramount/Spyglass’ “Scream 7” was able to hold on to the No. 2 spot on the charts this weekend, but still took a steep 73% drop from its $63.6 million opening to gross $17.3 million in its second weekend. Despite this, the film’s 10-day total of $93.8 million is 23% ahead of the pace of “Scream VI,” and “Scream 7” should pass its predecessor’s $108 million domestic total by next week.
More to come…
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