Box office: The Wild Robot has one of the best non-franchise debuts of the decade

The well-reviewed adaptation of Peter Brown's novel had the best first weekend of any post-Covid animated film that wasn't a sequel, a spin-off, or based on a video game.

A lost robot adopts a baby gosling in The Wild Robot.

Last week, the big story was that a well-reviewed animated movie about robots (i.e. Transformers One) was expected to make over $30 million in its opening weekend, and instead it fell well behind expectations and grossed a piddling $24.6 million.

This week, the big story is almost the exact opposite of that, as a completely different well-reviewed animated movie about robots (i.e. The Wild Robot; as the title suggests, it’s mainly about one robot, but other robots do get involved eventually) was expected to open “in the $24 million range”, and instead it soared to $35 million.

Thanks to that better-than-expected debut, The Wild Robot now has the best opening of any non-franchise (i.e. non-sequel, non-spinoff, not-based-on-a-video-game) animated film since pre-pandemic times, as well as the second-best non-franchise opening of the year (behind the live-action It Ends with Us).

The Wild Robot can also claim the third-best September debut of any animated movie ever, behind the first two (seasonal, star-driven) Hotel Transylvania movies.

And by my count, it had one of the seven or eight best debuts of any non-franchise movie this decade—and one of the five best openings once you also bracket off films that were based on toys, concert tours, and theme-park attractions.

Meanwhile, a few of this week’s other highlights:

• Transformers One had one of the steepest second-week drops of any animated film this decade (which means it’s legging out more like a typical front-loaded Transformers movie than an in-it-for-the-long-haul animated movie).

• Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis—his first new wide release in over a quarter-century—is a box-office bust, and the fifth Lionsgate flop in two months.

• The Forge is now the 2nd-highest-grossing “faith-based” film of the decade.

And now, a few more stats and facts re: this week’s top ten, title by title: