‘The Wild Robot’ Soars to $35 Million Launch While ‘Megalopolis’ Crashes to $4 Million

Universal/DreamWorks’ “The Wild Robot” is showing it has the makings of a lengthy run at the box office, earning a solid $35 million domestic opening weekend from 3,982 theaters.

Given the recent struggles of animated films that are not sequels or based on a very popular IP, tracking for “The Wild Robot” was in the $20 million range. But exhibitor sources say that walk-up traffic has been strong this weekend as word of the film’s critical acclaim began to spread over the past week.

The film now has spectacular Rotten Tomatoes scores of 98% critics and audience to go with an A on CinemaScore. With the October release slate leaning towards adult-oriented superhero sequels, Halloween horror and Oscar contenders, there will be no direct competition for “The Wild Robot,” which will give it plenty of room to leg out for weeks on end.

Meanwhile, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” is DOA in theaters, earning an opening weekend of just $4 million from 1,854 theaters.

While Lionsgate has suffered a series of theatrical misfires over the past two months, “Megalopolis” won’t be a financial blow to them as it only paid a fee for distribution, with Coppola agreeing to pay for the film’s marketing on top of its $120 million budget financed by the sale of his Sonoma wineries.

Since its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, “Megalopolis” has sharply divided critics with a 49% Rotten Tomatoes score, though some prominent writers like The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis and The New Yorker’s Justin Chang have championed the film. Audiences who saw the film on Friday most certainly have not, giving it a D+ on CinemaScore.

Whether “Megalopolis” becomes a cult hit among cinema lovers in the months and years to come remains to be seen, but for now Coppola’s epic is headed to a similar fate as Kevin Costner’s “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1” another self-funded passion project that made little at the box office, putting Costner’s plans for a four-part film series in jeopardy as release of the completed “Chapter 2” is on hold while completion of the series is still unfinanced.

Back on the charts, Warner Bros.’ “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has certainly proven to have that sort of staying power “The Wild Robot” is looking for, earning a strong $16 million in its fourth weekend in theaters as it has reached $250 million in domestic grosses. While primarily driven by American audiences without much of the overseas turnout that fueled other Warner hits like “Dune: Part Two,” it is inching closer to that film’s $282 million run this past spring.

On the flipside, there’s Paramount/Hasbro’s “Transformers One,” which is showing signs that it will be left behind by audiences in favor of “Wild Robot,” the enduring “Beetlejuice 2,” and the upcoming “Joker: Folie a Deux.” The film is earning just $9 million from its second weekend, a steep 63% drop from its $25 million opening weekend.

Despite its strong critical and audience reception, “Transformers One” has a 10-day domestic total of only $38.8 million. While the break-even point is considerably lower than for other “Transformers” films given its status as a $75 million co-production between Paramount, New Republic and Hasbro, the film is 26.5% down from the 10-day domestic total earned by “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” last year and will need overseas turnout to mitigate the weak performance in the U.S..

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