Michael Bond’s furry icon of children’s literature deserves a tip of the red bucket hat, with his latest big screen adventure Paddington in Peru achieving a banner debut in U.K. & Ireland cinemas.
The third live-action/CG movie scored a three-day take of £9.65 million ($12.4 million), making it the biggest opening of the year for a British-made movie (and the best since No Time to Die in 2021) and the biggest ever for Studiocanal. Dougal Wilson’s feature film directorial debut opened at No. 1 and brought in an estimated 1.2M moviegoers across the two countries.
The threequel debuted with higher U.K./R.O.I. numbers than the fully-animated hits The Super Mario Bros. Movie (£8.7M excluding previews; 2023), Incredibles 2 (£9.4M; 2018) and Despicable Me 4 (£8.8M; 2024). Paddington (2014) opened with £5.1M, and the 2017 sequel did £8.2M; in total, the prior two films grossed $600M worldwide.
Paddington in Peru will land in North American theaters on January 17, 2025 through Sony Pictures. (More info here.)
Stateside, this weekend saw the NorAm theatrical debut of Japanese animated feature Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom, based on the popular web novel and anime franchise created by Kugane Maruyama. Directed by series helmer Naoyuki Ito, the isekai adventure is set in a fantasy MMORPG world where gamer Momonga has been trapped for over a decade, rising to the level of Sorcerer King, who i snow enlisted by another kingdom to battle an invading Demon Emperor. (Read more.)
Released by Crunchyroll and Sony, the Madhouse production made a splash in the specialty box office charts, scoring a projected $1.165M from 621 locations, landing at No. 12 overall on the domestic charts. The pic debuted in Japan on September 20 and has racked up $5.66M there.
Elsewhere on the NorAm charts, DreamWorks’ The Wild Robot (Universal) is hanging on at the top with a No. 4 run in its seventh frame, bringing in ~$6.65M (-10.7%), bringing its domestic total to $130.9M ($292.5M worldwide). Transformers One (Paramount) squeaked into the Top 20 at No. 18 in its eighth week with $163K (total $58.9M / $128.7M), while Piece By Piece (Focus Features) slipped slightly to No. 21 with $95K in its fifth week (total $9.7M / $10.1M).
Topping the domestic charts once again was Venom: The Last Dance (Sony), which snagged $16.2M in its third frame, bringing its cume to $114.8M ($394.2M worldwide).
[Sources: Deadline, BoxOfficeMojo]
