Original animation had a big weekend at the North American box office, led by Pixar\u2019s Hoppers, which opened at No. 1 with an estimated $46 million domestically. The debut marks one of the strongest launches for an original animated feature in recent years and Pixar\u2019s best since\u00a0Coco in 2017.<\/p>\n
The studio\u2019s latest, the debut feature from We Bare Bears creator Daniel Chong, also delivered solid numbers overseas. Hoppers launched with an estimated $42 million from international markets, bringing its global opening weekend to $88 million.<\/p>\n
Hoppers\u2019 performance is exciting for a marketplace that has increasingly leaned on sequels and established IP to get butts in seats in recent years. Pixar has had a particularly rough go of it recently, making Hoppers\u2019 start an important reminder that audiences will still turn out for original animated storytelling when the concept connects and the film is entertaining.<\/p>\n
Pixar isn\u2019t the only studio celebrating an original win this week, though. Sony Pictures Animation\u2019s GOAT was fourth at the domestic box office with another $6.6 million raked in, continuing its impressive theatrical run. The Tyree Dillihay-helmed sports-comedy opened earlier this year to $35 million and has since grossed $84 million in North America and $146 million worldwide, solid results for a mid-budget original animated production that should stick around for a few more weeks.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, a Crunchyroll rerelease of the anime feature Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba \u2013 Infinity Castle pulled in $1.3 million domestically, pushing its North American total to $135.8 million after a lengthy run in theaters last fall.<\/p>\n
Disney\u2019s Zootopia 2 fell just outside the domestic top 10 over the weekend, adding another $800,000 for an NA total of more than $427 million since its Thanksgiving holiday release. The sequel has been a massive global success, now sitting at $1.86 billion worldwide, making it the second-highest-grossing animated film ever.<\/p>\n
With four animated films in the top 11, the weekend\u2019s box office offered a snapshot of the breadth of the medium\u2019s current theatrical ecosystem: a major original debut leading the charts, a mid-budget original continuing a respectable run, a Japanese anime phenomenon still drawing audiences with a limited rerelease, and a blockbuster Disney sequel that remains a long-legged performer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Original animation had a big weekend at the North American box office, led by Pixar\u2019s Hoppers, which opened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-322815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}