A newanimated moviefeaturing the voice ofTed Lassostar Jason Sudeikis has broken a major 2024 box office record with its dismal opening weekend. The year has seen some major animated hits debut in theaters, including the sequelsKung Fu Panda 4($549.1 million worldwide) andDespicable Me 4($965.2 million). On top of that, the Pixar movieInside Out 2earned $1.696 billion, not only becoming the No. 1 movie of the year so far but the highest-grossing animated movie of all time.
However,2024 animated movieshave largely continueda recent trend of debuting with low-to-middling opening weekends and then becoming sleeper hits. This includesThe Wild Robot, which has garnered Oscar buzz as its release, which debuted with $35.7 million, slowly climbed past $200 million worldwide and counting. Similarly,The Garfield Movieonly opened to $24 million but achieved a global gross of $257.2 million. In spite of this, the new Sudeikis movie does not seem to be destined to hit even this level, given its disappointing debut.
Hitpig! Has Broken A Dismal Box Office Record
Its Opening Weekend Is Perilously Low
Hitpig!has broken a major box office recordwith its dismal opening weekend. The movie, which was co-written by Berkeley Breathed and inspired by his 2008 children’s bookPete & Pickles, stars Sudeikis in the title role as a bounty hunter pig embarking on a Las Vegas adventure with the elephant Pickles (Lilly Singh). The voice cast also includes Rainn Wilson, Anitta, RuPaul, Hannah Gadsby, and Charlie Adler.Hitpig!reviewshave been middling, landing ita just-barely Fresh 61% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
PerDeadline, as of Saturday morning,Hitpig!is projected to take in a three-day opening weekend total of $945,000 at the domestic box office.Variety’s report differs, showing it coming in just over $1 million in its 2,000-theater debut. However, either total reflects that the movie will earnthe lowest-grossing domestic opening weekend of the year for any major wide release animated movie. Below, see a breakdown of how the movie compares to the other 2024 domestic wide release animated titles that have grossed lower than $10 million in more than 1,500 theaters:
~2,000
~$1 million
1,845
$3 million
1,865
$3.8 million
2,009
$4.8 million
The movie has alsocompared poorly to the majority of 2024’s animated re-releases, even though re-releases are notoriously fickle at the box office and typically play in fewer theaters.Hitpig!was vastly outgrossed by the debut ofLAIKA’sCoraline($9.8 million in 1,535 theaters) and won’t even matchThe Nightmare Before Christmas($2.4 million in 1,700 theaters) orShrek 2($1.4 million in 1,512 theaters), though it has beaten outTurning Red($578,000 in 1,560 theaters) and roughly matched 1994’sThe Lion King($1.055 million in 1,330 theaters).
Our Take On The Hitpig! Opening Weekend
The Movie’s Woes May Not Be Over
While it is possible that the box office forHitpig!could grow as its release continues throughout November, this prospect seems unlikely. It seems to have suffered due to a lack of a major publicity push, and audience reactions so far show thatit will probably not become a word-of-mouth success. PerDeadline, PostTrak shows that only 46% of polled audience members shared a positive reaction to the movie, which could spell doom for the already floundering project.
Hitpig!
Cast
Hitpig! is an animated film set to be released in 2024. It follows a porcine bounty hunter tasked with capturing Pickles, a naive elephant. The journey progresses into a globe-trotting adventure, forming an unlikely friendship that brings out new qualities in both characters.
