Following a strong Tuesday preview turnout which brought in $3.85 million, and surfing atop a wave of critical praise and strong audience word of mouth, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem rode to a five-day opening of $43.073 million domestically. The $70M film surpassed post-preview estimates hovering around $30M-$40M; 16% of box office came from premium screens and 3D was 13%.
While the Turtles came in behind billion-dollar Barbie and Oppenheimer, Paramount Pictures/Nickelodeon Movies are looking forward to a cowabunga-worthy performance as TMNT:MM has yet to see a majority of its international market launches and won’t see major animated family flick competition until PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie opens in eight weeks.
TMNT:MM is currently sitting on the highest Rotten Tomatoes critic score for any animated film this year with 96% Fresh (edging out Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse at 95%) and boasts an audience score of 92% as of Monday. Audience polls show kids and parents are enthusiastic in their ratings and recommends.
Audience & Reactions:
- 54% general audience/46% family
- 60% male/40% female
- 39% 18-34, 34% <18, 24% 35+
- 38% Cauc. / 34% Hisp. / 18% AA / 5% Asian / 5% NatAm other (62% multi-cultural)
- Ratings: 60% Excellent / 30% Very Good = 90% Total Positive for general audiences, 90% parents, and 95% kids
- Recommends: 69% definite recommend for general audience, 70% for parents, 66% must see for kids
- 4.5/5 stars on PostTrak for general audience and parents, kids were 5/5 stars; A CinemaScore
- 39% of the general audience and 53% of kids said it exceeded their expectations.
Other animation titles still in rotation include Disney-Pixar’s Elemental, which added $1.2M to its total gross ($148.3M) in its eighth weekend. Across the Spider-Verse swung $530,000 ($380.1M total) after 10 weekends. DreamWorks’ Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken pulled $30K ($15.7M, 6th w/e). And Illumination/Nintendo’s megahit The Super Mario Bros. Movie continues to pick up coins with a $10K weekend no. 18 ($574.2M).
[Sources: Paramount, BoxOfficeMojo]
