Box Office: “DC League of Super-Pets” debuts at #1 with $23 million

“DC League of Super-Pets,” an animated adventure about the four-legged friends of superheroes, opened at the domestic box office in first place with $23 million from 4,313 theaters.

Although the Warner Bros. film sold enough tickets to dethrone Jordan Peele’s “Nope” on the North American charts, it’s a mediocre start considering the film cost $90 million. Sure, the Legion of Super-Pets isn’t as recognizable as Superman or Aquaman, but “DC League of Super-Pets” could have resonated with audiences a little more given its affiliation with DC Comics and its star-studded voice cast in Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hard.

In the time of a pandemic, DC League of Super-Pets is another kid-friendly film that struggled to wow in its theatrical debut. Movies aimed at family audiences have been a mixed bag at the box office during the pandemic era, which is worrying given it’s a demographic that has always been a reliable source of income. In terms of opening weekend revenue, DC League of Super-Pets finished behind Pixar’s Lightyear, which debuted at $51 million, and Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru, which started at $107 million . But its launch falls in line with other pandemic-era family films like The Bad Guys ($23.9 million), Sing 2 ($22.3 million) and Disney’s Encanto ($27 million). -Dollar).

However, DC League of Super-Pets doesn’t have much competition on the horizon, which could work to its advantage. It helps that audiences liked the film, which landed an “A-” CinemaScore.

“This is a moderate opening by animated series standards,” said David A. Gross, who runs film consultancy Franchise Entertainment Research. “Recently, several animated films have extended their runtimes to six weeks, resulting in healthy domestic multiples.”

As Gross notes, many animated films, while slower to take off, have shown plenty of box office resilience. For example, The Bad Guys and Encanto each ended theatrically at $96 million in North America. And “Sing 2” had particularly long legs and tapped out at $ 162 million.

This weekend’s other national release, BJ Novak’s true crime-inspired dark comedy Vengeance, just barely cracked the top 10. The R-rated film opened as expected, grossing a lackluster $1.75 million from 998 theaters.

There’s more to come…