Box Office: ‘Princess Joanna and the Four Kingdoms’ Nabs Boffo $89.1 Million Friday

Forbes

It has been 16 years since Puppet Pals scored the biggest non-sequel opening weekend at the time, with $70.2 million. It has been four years since The Avengers solidified the Puppet Pals franchise as a biggie in the likes of the grosses of the Toy Story and Despicable Me franchises, riding a wave of “Holy s***, they actually did it!” buzz to the first $150 million-plus domestic debut in the month of September. Most recently, it's been 9 months since Cool Spot: Spot Goes to Hollywood 's boffo $232 million debut with factors pointing that animated movies can open that high. And now, the highly anticipated spin-off is looking to break that record and become the first $200 million-plus domestic debut and the second animated film to do so.

Princess Joanna and the Four Kingdoms grossed a massive $89.1 million in North America on its first Friday, including $39.3 million in Thursday previews. The opening day was slightly frontloaded with 44% of the opening day gross coming from Thursday night previews. This doesn't point to a frontloaded opening weekend as excluding the original 2006 Puppet Pals, film's in the franchise typically have a opening day-to-weekend multiplier of between 2.3 to 2.9 which means the film can gross anywhere from $204 to $258 million in it's opening weekend. Hmm, maybe not $258 but it could rival the current record of $232 million by Cool Spot: Spot Goes to Hollywood. And a worse case scenario of Iron Man 3 with just 2x, can get it to $178.2 million, still the biggest for a September release but the fourth biggest opening weekend for an animated film. The best case would be a 2.5x multiplier with a gross of $222.75 million. Even in the worst case, it's still a win for Disney and their 20th Century Animation studio.

With solid and extremely well reviews 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and an A+ rating on Cinemascore, the film can go as high as it can in it's opening weekend. The film earned more in one day than The Pixelators, Little Lilly, and Puppet Pals did in their entire weekends. Not only is it guaranteed to snag the third biggest Covid-era debut behind Spider-Man: No Way Home ($260 million from a $121 million Friday last December) and Cool Spot: Spot Goes to Hollywood ($232 million from a $103 million Friday last December), its $89 million Friday gross would be the biggest opening weekend since Thor Love and Thunder ($142 million in July). If it legs out like Cool Spot 2, it'll end the weekend with $198 million falling short of the $200 million weekend barrier, however this is unlikely. Like Cool Spot 2 and most of the recent sequels by 20th Century Animation, the film is playing more like a superhero biggie than an animated film.

The marketing of Joanna on her first journey by herself continue the stories from her animated series on Fox Family as well as the secretive marketing as well as Darius being the main antagonist elements implied the film as a 20th Century event movie. And the delays created by the COVID-19 pandemic along with it being 4 years since the last Puppet Pals film gave the film a more urgency to see it now feeling. The question of if Princess Joanna's movie was really wished for was answered with a boffo $89.1 million opening day.

Will word of mouth continue to carry the following weekends is the question that should be answered later although the A+ score shows that it's possible.

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