Long Range Forecast — September 27, 2024
The Wild Robot | Universal Pictures
Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $20M – $30M
Q3 will close with a pair of very different films vying to close out September with enough momentum to lead into an exciting October slate.
DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot, released by Universal Pictures, will be looking to unseat Transformers One from the number one spot in this frame. Releasing The Wild Robot so soon after the debut of another family-targeted animated film is a bold move from Universal, compounded by the Transformers franchise’s still-strong name recognition. It also indicates Universal’s confidence in the film, which is based on a multi-award-winning children’s book series about a robot (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) who is shipwrecked on a deserted island and develops a mother-child bond with an orphaned gosling. The trailer—which debuted at CinemaCon earlier this year—was well-received by those in attendance, drawing comparisons to 1999’s animated tearjerker The Iron Giant. (That film, now regarded as an animated classic, famously flopped at the box office; with the proliferation of social media in the subsequent 25 years, The Wild Robot should have an easier time generating positive word-of-mouth.)
Among DreamWorks’ top ten opening weekends, only two—2008’s Kung Fu Panda ($60.2M) and 2015’s Home ($52.1M)—belong to non-sequels. Home, like The Wild Robot, is based on a children’s book and was released near the tail end of a relatively slow month at the box office. (March, in Home‘s case.) The Wild Robot will be DreamWorks’ second-ever September debut, following Abominable, which opened to $20.6M in 2019 and eventually topped out at $61.2M domestically. (In a piece of scheduling synchronicity, Abominable came out the same day of the month as The Wild Robot—September 27—and was followed one week later by the first Joker movie).
DreamWorks Animation Top Opening Weekends
- Shrek the Third (2007) $121.6M
- Shrek 2 (2004) $108M
- Shrek Forever After (2010) $70.8M
- Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) $63.1M
- Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (2012) $60.3M
- Kung Fu Panda (2008) $60.2M
- Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) – $59.3M
- Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024) $57.9M
- How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) $55M
- Home (2015) $52.1M
Looking beyond DreamWorks, other recent late September/early October animated releases include 2023’s PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (September 21; $22.7M domestic opening, $65.2M domestic total), 2021’s The Addams Family 2 (October 1; $17.3M domestic opening, $56.4M domestic total), and 2018’s Smallfoot (September 28; $23M domestic opening, $83.2M domestic total). If The Wild Robot opens above $48.4M, it will snag the record for best opening for an animated September release from 2016’s Hotel Transylvania 2—unless, that is, Transformers One sets a new record in the interim.
Megalopolis | Lionsgate
Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $4M – $8M
At long last, Francis Ford Coppola’s long-in-development passion project Megalopolis hits theaters the same weekend as The Wild Robot, hoping to draw in the cinephile crowd as a counterpart to The Wild Robot‘s targeted family audience. Working against Coppola’s latest are middling reviews following its Cannes debut (54% positive on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing), a career lull (in the last 15 years he’s directed only two features, Distant Vision and Twixt, both critically lambasted); and a marketing push marred by controversy—including alleged sexually inappropriate behavior by Coppola on the set and the use of fake (seemingly AI-generated) critics’ quotes in a trailer, which Lionsgate later pulled. The general negativity surrounding Megalopolis in the weeks leading up to its release could repel curious filmgoers, leaving only die-hards to catch it on opening weekend.
On the film’s side are a blockbuster cast and a confirmed run on Imax screens. Even the cast, stacked as it is, is no guarantee of audience interest. Star Adam Driver, despite his Star Wars fame, has failed to launch high-concept sci-fi before (2023’s 65; $12.3M domestic opening, $32M domestic total), and a Coppola movie having a strong ensemble cast (which, in Megalopolis, includes Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Jason Schwartzman, and Shia LaBeouf) is by no means a guarantee of box office success, illustrated most infamously by 1990’s The Godfather Part III. If Megalopolis crosses $5M on opening weekend, it will be the first time a Coppola-helmed film has done so since 2000’s Supernova ($6.7M domestic opening, $14.2M domestic total).
Tracking Updates [as of 8/29]
| Release Date | Title | Opening Weekend Range | Distributor |
| 8/30/24 | Beetlejuice Beetlejuice | $100 – $130M | Warner Bros. |
| 9/6/24 | Speak No Evil | $15 – $20M | Universal |
| 9/13/24 | The Killer’s Game | $4 – $8M | Lionsgate |
| 9/13/24 | Transformers One | $40 – $50M | Paramount |
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