@rogers_jamieLaika Studios's PG-13 artsy animation Wildwood is quickly becoming what we thought Forgotten Island would be: this year's Wild Robot at the US Box Office! Distributed by Fathom, it exploded, hitting #1 on the 2nd Tuesday Discount Day with a spectacular $2.1M, actually up +10.5% (!!!) from the first Tuesday, after having 344 theatres added last Friday; it is now playing in over 2,900 locations (vs. Missing Link's $479k, -43%, The Boxtrolls's $668k, -22.5%, Kubo and the Two Strings' $1M, -33.9%, ParaNorman's $1M, -40.4%, Coraline's $1.2M, +57.6%). It has hit a $30.7M cumulative total in the U.S. The hope is that strong word-of-mouth and awards season will keep the original animation alive both in the U.S. and overseas, along with revenue generated from international distribution rights sales, to recoup at least part of its pricey $100M production price tag, not including marketing. I'll wait until the weekend to update its run projection in the U.S., to see how it behaves facing The Cat in the Hat, but it's starting to look like the $55M run in the U.S. which seemed to be the ceiling might become the new floor.

@rogers_jamieLaika Studios's PG-13 artsy animation Wildwood is quickly becoming what we thought Forgotten Island would be: this year's Wild Robot at the US Box Office! Distributed by Fathom, it exploded, hitting #1 on the 2nd Tuesday Discount Day with a spectacular $2.1M, actually up +10.5% (!!!) from the first Tuesday, after having 344 theatres added last Friday; it is now playing in over 2,900 locations (vs. Missing Link's $479k, -43%, The Boxtrolls's $668k, -22.5%, Kubo and the Two Strings' $1M, -33.9%, ParaNorman's $1M, -40.4%, Coraline's $1.2M, +57.6%). It has hit a $30.7M cumulative total in the U.S. The hope is that strong word-of-mouth and awards season will keep the original animation alive both in the U.S. and overseas, along with revenue generated from international distribution rights sales, to recoup at least part of its pricey $100M production price tag, not including marketing. I'll wait until the weekend to update its run projection in the U.S., to see how it behaves facing The Cat in the Hat, but it's starting to look like the $55M run in the U.S. which seemed to be the ceiling might become the new floor.