Ahead of his big entree onto cinema screens on May 24, Jon Davis’ beloved binge-eating cat is enjoying a box office appetizer from 18 overseas markets. The Garfield Movie (Sony Pictures/Alcon Entertainment) this weekend took in $22 million from these territories, which account for just 35% of its planned global release.
The limited overseas total already has the popular feline tracking ahead of similar family animated releases, including DC League of Super Pets (Garfield at +76%) and Puss in Boot: The Last Wish (+41%) and neck-and-double-chin with The Secret Life of Pets 2, according to Deadline.
The Garfield Movie‘s biggest initial markets are Mexico ($8.4M over six days), Spain ($3.2M, five days; biggest animated open since The Super Mario Bros. Movie in 2023), Brazil ($2.2M), Italy ($1.6M) and Peru ($1.3M).
In other animation box-office news, Kung Fu Panda 4 (DreamWorks Animation/Universal Pictures) continues to strike gold overseas, picking up another $7.7M this weekend and bringing its international total to $331.7M ($520M worldwide). The fourth outing has now surpassed the overseas cumes of Kung Fu Panda 3, Illumination’s Sing 2 and Blue Sky’s Ice Age: Collision Course.
Directed by animation vet Mark Dindal (Cats Don’t Dance, The Emperor’s New Groove, Chicken Little), the new fully-animated pic sends pampered indoor cat Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt) on a wild outdoor adventure when he and Odie (Harvey Guillén) join Garfield’s long-lost father, Vic (Samuel L. Jackson) on a high-stakes heist.
The voice cast also features Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang and Snoop Dogg.
Don’t miss our feature story on The Garfield Movie in the June-July ’24 issue of Animation Magazine, available now.
[Source: Deadline]
