After three weeks at the top of U.S. box office charts, American Sniper may finally be defeated — by a much-loved cartoon character.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, distributed by Paramount Pictures, is expected to soak up pent-up demand following a relatively quiet period for family-friendly films. The last major film designed to appeal to children, Weinstein Co.’s Paddington, which had its wide release 16 January alongside American Sniper, is tracking as the second-highest grossing film during the first few weeks of 2015.
Most estimates predicted that Sponge Out of Water would debut to $35 million or more during the 6 February weekend, sailing ahead of Sniper, which BoxOffice.com projects will fall to No. 2 with $23.5 million during its fourth weekend in wide release.
A decade has passed since Viacom Inc.’s Paramount released its last major motion picture featuring the Nickelodeon character SpongeBob. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie debuted to $32.0 million for its opening weekend in November 2004 and ultimately went on to record a total domestic gross of $85.4 million and a profit margin of 34.7%. Indeed, the prior SpongeBob flick outperformed other animated fare featuring Nickelodeon characters that was released around the same time, including 2003’s Rugrats Go Wild! and 2002’s The Wild Thornberrys. Those films’ profit margins came in at 25.9% and 26.9%, respectively.
The new SpongeBob movie sees the off-beat undersea-dwelling character venture on land as part of a plot to foil the plans of a dastardly pirate, voiced by Antonio Banderas. Sponge Out of Water had mopped up a 76% approval rating on review aggregator RottenTomatoes.com as of about 10 a.m. ET on February 6.
Aside from SpongeBob, two action films are slated for wide release during the February 6 weekend. Jupiter Ascending, distributed by Warner Bros., and Seventh Son, from Universal.
Big budgets and poor reviews may hamper both action offerings; however, of the two, Jupiter Ascending is expected to perform the strongest in debut ticket sales, with opening weekend projections for that film ranging from the upper teens to the low twenties. Meanwhile, Seventh Son is expected to come in under the $10-million mark. Still, Deadline.com notes that Seventh Son may ultimately prove the more profitable of the two due its lower costs (Jupiter Ascending reportedly had an outsized budget of $150 million versus $95 million for Seventh Son). However, distributors of both films may be looking to overseas tickets to help prop up overall sales and recoup costs.
Jupiter Ascending is the latest offering from co-directors Andy and Lana Wachowski, the sibling team that also directed The Matrix. The new film stars Mila Kunis as Jupiter Jones, a housecleaner who is swept into an interplanetary power play after it is discovered that she carries the genes to qualify as Earth’s next queen. Co-star Channing Tatum plays a half-human, half-wolf ex-military hunter who takes on the role of Jupiter’s protector.
While marketing for Jupiter Ascending plays up its tie to the duo behind The Matrix, an opening weekend of somewhere around $20 million would place it below that movie, which opened to $27.8 million in 1999. To be sure, not all Wachowski-directed films have proven to be hits. The 2012 film, Cloud Atlas, lost money after it opened to a disappointing $9.6 million after incurring costs above $100 million.
“Pleasing to the eye but narratively befuddled, Jupiter Ascending delivers another visually thrilling misfire from the Wachowskis,” wrote RottenTomatoes.com, where the film had a 24% approval rating as of about 10am ET on February 6.
