Audiences for animated movies are proving to be more diverse than the industry expected. Last weekend, Laika, the Oscar-nominated studio behind movies “Coraline” and “ParaNorman,” released its newest feature film, “Wildwood.” The original animated feature, which received a rare PG-13 rating, landed in third place at the domestic box office, earning an estimated $11.6 million, according to its distributor.
DC Studio’s body horror, “Clayface,” topped the box office with $24 million. “You Can See Everything,” the experimental Elizabeth Holmes documentary, came in second and added $19.5 million to its $45-million total haul, according to the data analytics company Rentrak. Distributed by Fathom Entertainment — the joint venture of AMC Entertainment Holdings, Regal Cinemas and Cinemark Holdings — “Wildwood” opened in slightly more than 2,900 North American theaters.
The distributor said the box office haul is a rare achievement for independently produced and distributed PG-13 animation, as very few films of this nature have received such a wide theatrical release. The film performed substantially better than the $6-million to 10-million box office analysts had forecast. The opening comes as audiences have strongly favored familiar animated stories like “Toy Story 5” and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which each earned more than $1 billion.
Original animated stories have received mixed reactions
Original animated stories have received mixed reactions. This year, Disney Pixar’s “Hoppers” found success opening weekend, earning $45 million domestically, while DreamWorks Animation’s “Forgotten Island” opened to a softer $13 million last month. “While the major studios rely heavily on established animated franchises like ‘Super Mario,’ ‘Minions’ and ‘Toy Story,’ Laika has carved out a really unique place in the animation world,” Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends at Rentrak, said in a statement.
The film is Laika’s first in seven years and has been in the works since 2011. Based on the novel by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis, it follows Prue, a young girl who ventures into an enchanted forest to save her little brother. The Oregon-based studio was founded in 2005 by Nike co-founder Phil Knight. His son Travis Knight is the owner, chief executive and director of “Wildwood.” The handcrafted, stop-motion film runs a little longer than two hours, and more than a thousand people worked on it.
The studio did not disclose its production budget. Laika films can cost between $60 million and $100 million to make “‘Wildwood’ embodies everything Laika believes animation can be: a handmade film that is emotionally resonant, visually ambitious, and created by artists, craftspeople and technical innovators working at the highest level,” David Burke, the film’s executive producer, said in a statement
Opening weekend was just a starting point
Opening weekend was just a starting point for Laika. The studio’s films historically have demonstrated strong theatrical staying power, with its five previous features averaging around 3.6 times their opening weekend domestically The film also is expected to hit dozens of international markets in the coming weeks. Dergarabedian said the opening is “encouraging, particularly for a film that doesn’t fit the traditional animated blockbuster mold
Its performance is another example of why originality and creative risk-taking are so important to the theatrical marketplace.” “At Laika, we have always taken the long view,” Burke said in a statement. “Laika makes timeless films that resonate with audiences around the world and across generations. ‘Wildwood’ carries that tradition forward.”
