Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed, decades-in-the-making epic Megalopolis flopped, while DreamWorks Animation’s acclaimed family film The Wild Robot shot to number one at the weekend box office.
The Wild Robot, Chris Sanders’ adaptation of Peter Brown’s bestseller, exceeded expectations and opened with $35 million in ticket sales in theaters in the United States and Canada, according to studio estimates released Sunday.
The DreamWorks film was poised to do well after critics praised the story of a shipwrecked robot who raises an orphaned gosling. Audiences agreed and gave the film an ‘A’ CinemaScore. ‘Wild Robot’ is likely to enjoy a long and lucrative run for its distributor Universal Pictures.
Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, predicts that The Wild Robot “can take a page from Elemental’s playbook by opening to a respectable box office and then looking toward long-term gameplay.”
Pixar’s ‘Elemental,’ which like ‘The Wild Robot’ was not a sequel, debuted with a modest $30 million, but went on to gross almost $500 million worldwide.
Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel appear in a still from Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-long self-financed epic Megalopolis, which bombed at the weekend box office.
Family films, led by the year’s biggest hit, ‘Inside Out 2’, have especially boosted the box office this year. David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter for Franchise Entertainment, said the genre should reach $6 billion worldwide by 2024, which he noted is “back to pre-pandemic levels.” .
‘Megalopolis,’ Coppola’s vision of a Roman epic set in modern-day New York, was never expected to perform anywhere near that level. But the film’s $4 million debut was still sobering for a film Coppola financed himself for $120 million, even selling a stake in his California vineyard. After its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, reviews have been mixed about Coppola’s first film in 13 years. Audiences gave it a ‘D+’ CinemaScore.
From any financial point of view, Megalopolis was a mega-failure. But from the beginning, Coppola, 85, maintained that the money was none of his concern. Coppola designed the film, which he began developing in the late 1970s, as a grand personal statement about human possibilities.
“Everyone is very worried about money,” Coppola told The Associated Press in an interview before the film’s release. ‘I say: Give me less money and give me more friends.’
The studios abandoned ‘Megalopolis’ after Cannes. Lionsgate eventually stepped forward to distribute it, for a fee. Coppola also picked up the tab for most of his $15 million in marketing costs. The film, starring Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel and Aubrey Plaza, also played in about 200 IMAX locations, accounting for $1.8 million of its ticket sales.
After three weeks at the top of the box office, Tim Burton’s ‘Beetlejuice’ Beetlejuice fell to second place with $16 million in its fourth weekend of release. Warner Bros.’ sequel to 1988’s ‘Beetlejuice’, starring Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder, has grossed $250 million domestically in one month of release.
Third place went to ‘Transformers One’, the Transformers prequel starring Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry. After its smaller-than-expected debut last weekend, the Paramount release grossed $9.3 million in its second weekend.
‘Megalopolis’ was even surpassed by the Telugu-language Indian action film ‘Devara: Part 1’. It grossed $5.1 million in its opening weekend, good enough for fourth place.
Roz, voiced by Oscar winner Lupita N’Yongo, and Brightbill, voiced by Kit Connor, appear in a scene from the DreamWorks Animation film The Wild Robot.
Lupita appears earlier this month at the premiere of The Wild Robot during the 72nd San Sebastian Film Festival at the Victoria Eugenia Theater in San Sebastian, Spain.
Francis Ford Coppola appears with actor Adam on the set of Megalopolis
Michael Keaton appears as Beetlejuice as he reprises his role for the 2024 sequel.
Also debuting in theaters was Jason Reitman’s ‘Saturday Night’, an affectionate dramatization of the institution of sketch comedy on the night of its first broadcast in 1975.
On the same weekend that the NBC series began its 50th season, Reitman’s film opened in five theaters in New York and Los Angeles and grossed $265,000, a solid average of $53,000 per theater. ‘Saturday Night’ will arrive nationwide in two weeks.
Transformers One finished in third place as the familiar origin story continued to find audiences after a relatively soft opening weekend.
Fourthly, the new Telugu language film “Devara Part 1” featured an action drama film about two brothers who become enemies, filmed in the regional Indian language.
In fifth place was Speak No Evil, a new psychological horror film from Blumhouse and Universal Pictures, which grossed $4.3 million.