‘Hoppers’ top North American box office

[NEW YORK] When in doubt, dispatch a comedic troupe of talking animals.

Pixar Animation, which has struggled to find original hits in recent years, found an instant crowd-pleaser over the weekend with Hoppers. It collected roughly US$46 million in the United States and Canada from Thursday (Mar 5) through Sunday — the best domestic start for a Pixar original in nearly a decade.

Hoppers, which received stratospheric reviews, is about a college student who uses technology to become a beaver, inadvertently igniting a wacky animal kingdom uprising.

The weekend box office also highlighted a less-pleasant reality of the modern film business: Heavy spending on auteur filmmaking can result in a financial wipeout.

The Bride!, which imagines an empowered, punk rock mate for Victor Frankenstein’s monster, sold about US$7 million in tickets at domestic theatres.

Warner Bros spent at least US$80 million on the R-rated movie, not including tens of millions of dollars in marketing costs, and was hoping that it would sell at least US$16 million over its first few days in theatres.

Studios receive about 50 per cent of ticket revenue, with theatres keeping the balance.

Hoppers was easily the No 1 movie in North America over the weekend, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. Ticket buyers gave the film an “A” grade in CinemaScore exit polls.

Pixar spent an estimated US$150 million to make the PG-rated film, not including marketing costs.

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Hoppers collected an additional US$43 million overseas, for a global total of US$88 million. Box office analysts said on Sunday that, based on weekend ticket sales, Hoppers could ultimately generate US$500 million or more worldwide.

Pixar, which is owned by Disney, has delivered smash hit sequels in recent years, including Inside Out 2, which had US$1.7 billion in worldwide ticket sales in 2024. But the studio has recently struggled to attract large audiences to its original movies. At a time when streaming services have proliferated and the broader economy is unsettled, families want assurance that a movie is worth its ticket price.

Pixar’s most-recent original, Elio, was a disaster, arriving to US$20 million in domestic ticket sales last year and only managing US$154 million worldwide by the end of its run.

In contrast, Hoppers gave Pixar its biggest original debut since Coco, which had US$50.8 million in opening-weekend sales in 2017, or about US$68 million after adjusting for inflation. (Coco 2 is on the way.)

The animation industry has a long history of success with anthropomorphic animals, but there has been a resurgence lately.

Zootopia 2 (Disney) was Hollywood’s No 1 movie in 2025, with US$1.9 billion in global ticket sales, according to Comscore. Goat, a modestly budgeted talking-animal movie from Sony, has performed better than analyst expectations in recent weeks, so far collecting US$146 million worldwide.

For this weekend in the United States and Canada, Scream 7 by Paramount was second, with about US$17.3 million in ticket sales, giving the film a strong two-week domestic total of US$93.4 million.

The Bride! was a distant third, ending an astounding run at Warner Bros in which 10 consecutive films arrived at No 1. Audiences gave The Bride!, which was directed and written by Maggie Gyllenhaal, a C-plus grade in CinemaScore exit polls. Reviews were weak.

The Bride! also appeared to be dead on arrival overseas, where it generated about US$6 million in weekend ticket sales from 70 countries. Analysts had predicted roughly US$22 million before its release. NYTIMES