'Hailey' Wows With Wonderful $400 Million Domestic Box Office

Forbes October 20, 2022

We're approaching the end of Hailey's domestic theatrical run, but the film remains in the weekly top-10 after nearly eleven weeks in release and continues to enjoy declines in the 25-35% range. Worldwide, Hailey has already topped $962 million and still has several million more dollars to go in its existing territories due to the repeated viewings of the film. And with the overperformance of the film in main markets of China and Japan, a gross of $1 billion is highly likely if the film continues to experience small drops through out the weeks, only problem is, it released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 18 in the United States. As the film continues to impress worldwide despite competition such as Stella: An Angry Birds Movie and Princess Joanna and the Four Kingdoms, the film has reached a major milestone that no other MGM film has ever did without inflation.

After seventy-five days in release domestically, the leggy comedy film has finally reached $400 million domestically. This is a major win for Metro Goldwyn Mayer as it is the very first MGM film to reach this without inflation as well as the first MGM Animation film to do so as well. Turns out Upside Mystery Legacy might have to go beyond to beat this. Anyways, the film was playing like Wonder Woman but started falling behind it on a daily basis.

That number an arbitrary figure for praise especially for a release in August. It means Hailey will pass Kevin Lima's 2018 Spider-Man for the 17 spot on the all-time list of August release domestic grosses, and a strong enough continued hold stateside could help it challenge Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($411.3 million) and Twentieth Toons: Quest for the Toon Temple ($415.5 million) to be the second biggest animated film and third overall film of 2022 behind Top Gun: Maverick and Princess Joanna and the Four Kingdoms.

To reach such lofty heights in her original animated film cinematic adaptation makes Hailey an elite film in box office. Indeed, Hailey is the highest grossing original animated film domestically but worldwide is a bridge too far. It's also only the second non-sequel original film in the top 20 highest grossing animated films domestically to make $400 million as well after Frozen.

Hailey enters the middle of the week with approximately $962 million in worldwide receipts, including about $400 million from North America. There's a decent chance it could actually hit $970 million by close of business Sunday, but it'll have at least a $800k-$1 million domestic weekend along with a possible $3.5-$4.3 million if it holds well overseas weekend.

As of right now, a sequel hasn't been ordered but if a sequel is to eventually be ordered and green-lit a Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle to The Next Level drop in worldwide receipts still wouldn't be bad or even if the films reaches higher and possibly outgrosses Spectre worldwide.