THB #599: Weekend Box Office In Under 500 Words

This was another weak box office weekend. Four of Five September weekends (inc Sunday, Sept 1) grossed under $100m total. We need better. Still, I would not write about it at all, as none of what happened really surprised. But box office writers continue to drown reality in meaningless promotion for analytics that, in the end, didn’t do the job.

The Wild Robot, very carefully and lovingly attended to by Universal Marketing (as well as team Dreamworks), did about all you could expect for an original animation released in September, 2 weeks after another animated film starring a robot. It overperformed the guessers (and/or the tracking) by 50% this weekend… which is not unusual for animation. Feel free to read the many excuses. What it made is news. What it was projected to make is not.

It’s the 15th best opening of the year and the 24th best opening for Dreamworks Animation and their 14th best DWA opening for a Original/1st-Franchise title. (Bee Movie opened to $38 million… in 2007) Tha…