Batman Succeeds: 'Lego Batman' Wins the Weekend Again

No shock, really.

The Lego Batman Movie wasn't facing any tentpole-esque competition this week. Not even the big budget epic The Great Wall, which might make its money back because of the Chinese and overseas grosses. Universal pretty much dumped that one here, so the mini figures had the weekend all to themselves.

Falling a good 35%, The Lego Batman Movie collected $20 million and is sitting at $98 million domestically. Not as strong as The Lego Movie's second weekend drop, but it doesn't matter. The thing is doing damn fine for a spin-off. Worldwide, it is currently at $170 million, more than double the budget. We're off to a good start!

Moana surged a few spaces ahead, going from 17 to 13, and rising 37%. No theater expansion or special promotion or anything, it just... Jumped a bit. There's still some oil in this tank. $244 million domestically, $573 million. Japan will do the rest in a matter of weeks.

What's impressive is the weekend performance puts it ahead of Sing, a leggy smash that opened nearly a month after it. Sing tumbled 58%. $266 million here, it should top out between $270-275 million here, making it Illumination's second biggest non-Despicable Me film behind The Secret Life of Pets. Worldwide, the film is up to $528 million. China just got the film, Russia and Japan get it next. Let's see how high it goes from here...

Monster Trucks is down 70%, not much has changed. $60 million worldwide. No update on Trolls, whether it has ended its run or not. I wonder how the home media sales are...

UPDATE: Four-days are in...

The only major change here is The Lego Batman Movie, which looks to make $107 million by the end of today. Worldwide, this puts its a few clicks higher, $179 million.

Really Planning Ahead: Illumination Extends Slate to 2023

Holy crap! That's six years from now!

You read the title right, Illumination has added four new movies their slate, the last of which is set to open in the summer of 2023.

All of them are untitled, Box Office Mojo lists them as "Untitled Illumination Animated Film", as opposed to "Untitled Illumination Franchise Film." Could it be?? Is it possible that a majority of these movies will be original, non-sequel films? Maybe, maybe not... Perhaps a sequel rush after Grinch, and then a whole string of originals?

We shall see, but...

The dates.

Movie #1 - July 2, 2021
Movie #2 - July 1, 2022
Movie #3 - December 21, 2022
Movie #4 - June 30, 2023

I like that they're kinda-sorta pacing themselves with two-in-one-year thing. Double-whammies from them will come every two years starting in 2020, it seems. This past year was the first time Illumination readied two films for one calendar year, 2020 looks to repeat that (2018 was originally going to have two films), and now 2022. Will that turn into a pattern? Maybe, maybe not.

It's no shock, though... Illumination is a hit-making machine. Their lower budget movies, they really seem to strike a chord with the general public, no matter what kind of reception they get from critics and animation fans. Comcast probably has some algorithm or something...

Anyways, they're the first animation studio to claim dates in those years. Universal Pictures themselves were actually the first distributor to stake out a concrete 2021 date, for their tenth Fast & Furious installment. All of the other studios have yet to set anything in stone past 2020...

My theory on what will fill those slots? Something Dr. Seuss-based will, as they've been developing a Cat in the Hat movie for a while. The next two can go to Johnny Express and Flanimals, assuming both of those are still a go. Slot 4? Probably a sequel, Secret Life of Pets 3? You know it will happen.

What say you?

Weekend Box Office Report: 'Storks' Eases, 'Dory' Near $1 Billion

It looks like Storks will be all set.

As said before, the film cost $70 million to make, so not too much is riding on the back of this pretty well-liked animated comedy. It fell a good 36%, ending up at $38 million domestically. Worldwide, it's at $77 million, so it's slowly but surely picking up steam. If it follows Open Season's ten-year-old trajectory, then the picture will end up with $77 million domestically. Overseas grosses should get it up to a good near-$200 million total worldwide, which Warner Bros. should be satisfied with, which I elaborated upon here.

Right now, Storks is the only caricature animation film flying around the Top 10. Kubo and the Two Strings fell 58%, it looks like the crawl to $50 million will be slow, but that will still be 4.1x its opening gross. Worldwide, it's at $61 million. The Blu-ray is coming in a little over a month.

The Secret Life of Pets continues to linger and linger and linger. It fell 36%, it's at $364 million domestically and $834 million worldwide. Just wow... Sausage Party fell 66%, still below $100 million domestically, but it doesn't matter, the budget was tiny on this one. $124 million worldwide, 6 1/2x the budget. Titmouse's adults-only feature Nerdland is hitting theaters thanks to Samuel Goldwyn Films, and perhaps this months-old movie got picked up because of how well the food film did.

Finding Dory looks to finish with around $485-486 million when all is said and done, but it surged in Germany, bringing the worldwide gross up to $986 million. It is now officially getting closer, and as Cartoon Brew noted, this will be the first year where two animated features (again, of the caricature/not same-as-real-life variety) have cracked the big billion at the worldwide box office. Yes, this year has been pretty darn good to the medium...

Little to no movement on Ice Age cinque, The Wild Life fell 25 places, lost 1,200+ theaters, and dropped 87%. The picture looks to barely crack $8 million domestically, much worse than Norm of the North. I hate to think what Lionsgate will do to Rock Dog this coming February... But what matters is, the microbudgeted movie made it back worldwide.

What say you?