Box Office: Beetlejuice 2 Hits Huge Milestone, Wild Robot Defeats Francis Ford Coppola’s $120M Epic [Full Chart Update]

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice approaches a major milestone at the domestic box office while The Wild Robot trounces fellow new release Megalopolis. Though the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice release is in its fourth weekend in theaters, Tim Burton’s smash-hit legacy sequel has continued to thrive after debuting with $111 million, the third-best opening weekend of the year so far. Its latest competition is the DreamWorks animated movie The Wild Robot, about a robot stranded on a desert island learning to bond with nature, and Francis Ford Coppola’s self-funded $120 million sci-fi epic passion project Megalopolis.

Per Variety, as of Sunday morning, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is projected to hit the $250 million milestone at the domestic box office by the end of its fourth weekend in theaters, adding $16 million to its cumulative total. This will see it draw perilously close to toppling Batman ($251.4 million), which is Tim Burton’s second highest-grossing movie in North America behind Alice in Wonderland ($334.1 million). It seems certain to surpass Batman as Burton’s No. 2 domestic movie in the coming week.

Meanwhile, of the new English-language releases, The Wild Robot has come out on top by a substantial margin. The animated movie is projected to debut to $35 million, which is the third-best opening weekend ever for a September animated release. Megalopolis has fallen significantly behind, with a projected $4 million gross placing it at No. 6 on the domestic chart for the weekend, landing outside of the Top 5 completely. Take a look at the full Top 5 domestic chart below:

While Megalopolis failed to debut on the Top 5 chart, a different new release movie found its way onto the chart. That would be Devara: Part 1, an Indian action title that features RRR star N. T. Rama Rao Jr in a dual role. The Telugu-language feature debuted in North America with a $6.7 million gross from just 1,040 theaters, which is even fewer than Megalopolis‘ 1,854, which was already slightly conservative for a contemporary wide release.

Meanwhile, Transformers One dropped from No. 2 to No. 3 with a $9.1 million gross. This represents a 63% drop from its opening weekend, a not unexpected but slightly rough fall after debuting at No. 2. Additionally, Speak No Evil had a solid 27% fall from No. 3 to No. 5 with $4.3 million in its third weekend.

With two new releases appearing on the chart, two of last week’s Top 5 titles have been cleared from the board. One was the previous No. 5 title Deadpool & Wolverine, which has fallen to No. 7 with $2.8 million during the tenth weekend of its record-breaking run. The other is Never Let Go, which fell from No. 4 directly to No. 8 with $2.1 million, a 53% drop that is not particularly harsh for a second-week horror title, as the genre frequently drops 60% or more during its second weekend.

What These Opening Totals Mean For The Wild Robot And Megalopolis

Only One New Release Is On Track To Break Even

This opening weekend total puts the Wild Robot release on a strong footing. Although it is only the third-best September animated debut, it is just behind 2012’s Hotel Transylvania ($42.5 million) and 2015’s Hotel Transylvania 2 ($48.4 million), which went on to gross $358.4 million and $475.2 million worldwide respectively. If the new movie can stay on track with those titles, it could gross somewhere around $295 million by the end of its run, which would be a respectable total in the face of its $78 million budget.

In contrast, the Megalopolis release has a difficult road ahead of it. U.S. distributor Lionsgate is not on the hook for the massive $120 million budget. However, the self-funded movie took a financial toll on Coppola. The risky moves made by the Apocalypse Now and The Godfather director included selling a portion of his winery to fund the long-gestating sci-fi epic, which originally went into development in 1983. With this single-digit debut, it seems highly unlikely to come anywhere close to making that money back in theaters, let alone turning a profit.

Our Take On The Weekend Box Office

Megalopolis Suffers In Comparison To The Weekend’s Hits

While the Wild Robot and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice box office are both likely set up to continue enjoying a strong chart performance in the coming weeks, it seems possible that Megalopolis could fall from the Top 10 immediately during its second week in theaters. There does not seem to be a strong likelihood of a word-of-mouth boost for the Coppola project, which has a D+ CinemaScore and a 41% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. That, combined with the impending release of the blockbuster superhero sequel Joker: Folie à Deux, likely spells doom for the ambitious sci-fi movie.

Source: Variety