"The Wild Robot" Opens at #1 while Francis Ford Coppola‘s "Megalopolis" Flops

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Megalopolis Crumbles with $4 Million, The Wild Robot Lands at No. 1 with $35 Million
by Rebecca Rubin
Sept. 29, 2024


Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot landed in first place on box office charts, taking flight on the higher end of expectations with $35 million from 3,962 venues.

Meanwhile, Francis Ford Coppola‘s sci-fi epic Megalopolis collapsed in its box office debut, collecting an anemic $4 million from 1,854 North American theaters.



Ticket sales for Megalopolis were less than initial projections of $5 million to $7 million, which would have been financially disastrous for the $120 million-budgeted film.

With poor word of mouth (the film received a “D+” grade on CinemaScore), Megalopolis opened in sixth place behind three holdover titles and the Indian Telugu-language action film Devara: Part 1.





The Wild Robot cost $78 million, so it hopes to enjoy the staying power that benefitted post-pandemic animated family films such as Pixar’s Elemental and Illumination’s Migration, both of which parlayed positive sentiments into ticket sales in the months after their debuts.

The Wild Robot has been embraced by critics and audiences — it scored a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and “A” on CinemaScore — which bodes well for its theatrical run.

At the international box office, The Wild Robot has a global tally of $53 million.





Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice fell to second place, bringing in $16 million from 3,804 venues in its fourth weekend of release.

The film has generated $250 million domestically and $373.3 million globally to date.





Paramount’s animated Transformers One, starring Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry as young Optimus Prime and Megatron, dropped to the No. 3 spot.

The movie earned $9.3 million from 3,970 locations, marking a steep 63% decline from its debut. It has taken in $39.1 million at the domestic box office and $72 million globally.





Indian Telugu-language action film Devara: Part 1 opened in fourth place, amassing an estimated $6.7 million from just 1,040 theaters.

Speak No Evil rounded out the top five with $4.3 million from 2,661 theaters. That’s a 27% decline from the weekend prior, a stellar hold for any film in its third weekend of release.

So far, it has grossed $28 million in North America and $57.7 million worldwide.





In limited release, director Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, a dramatic look at the lead up to the first “Saturday Night Live” episode, earned $265,000 from five venues in New York and Los Angeles. Those ticket sales translate to a strong $53,000 per location.

Sony is releasing the movie nationwide on Oct. 11.

https://variety.com/2024/film/box-of...nd-1236159253/





September 27-29, 2024: Weekend Studio Estimates

1. The Wild Robot $35,000,000
2. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice $16,040,000 / $250,132,898
3. Transformers One $9,300,000 / $39,164,458
4. Devara Part 1 $5,600,000
5. Speak No Evil $4,300,000 / $28,140,120
6. Megalopolis $4,000,000
7. Deadpool & Wolverine $2,657,000 / $631,257,109
8. My Old Ass $2,224,159 / $2,851,474
9. Never Let Go $2,200,000 / $8,252,523
10. The Substance $1,806,160 / $6,865,275