Daffy and Porky save the world from greedy aliens in The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie but they may end up at the No. 5 spot at the U.S. weekend box office with an estimated $3.1 million gross. The Warner Bros. Animation movie, which is distributed indie outfit Ketchup Entertainment posted a $1 million opening on Friday. Tell all your friends to go see this movie, so we can have more 2D-animated features (and hilarious, original Looney Tunes projects) on the big screen again! If the movie ends up being a success, we may even been able to see the shelved Coyote vs. Acme hybrid movie in theaters too, fingers crossed!
Directed by Pete Browngardt, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is billed as the first fully animated and theatrically released film in the franchise, based on entirely original material. It’s a spin-off from the Looney Tunes Cartoons series developed by Browngardt and this team, and showcases the voice talent of Eric Bauza, Candi Milo and Peter MacNicol. The plot finds Daffy Duck and Porky Pig trying to save the planet from a vicious world domination scheme from aliens from outer space, paying homage to favorite sci-fi B-movies from the 1950s and ’60s.
The movie received a B+ Cinemascore and 89% on PostTrak. It earned a respectable 86% score on the review aggregation site, rottentomatoes.com. The movie has already earned $1,916,576 worldwide. The other animated titles at this week’s box office were Sony’s Paddington in Peru (at the No. 7 spot) with an estimated $2.75 million weekend take ($41.2 million cume in its fifth week) and DreamWorks’ Dog Man in the 9th spot with a $650,000 weekend and a $92.6 million total gross in its seventh weekend.
Disney fans will be watching next weekend’s box office openings closely to see the much maligned live-action (with some odd-looking CG-animated dwarfs!) version of Snow White performs in theaters. The remake of Disney’s 1937 classic features Rachel Zegler in the title role and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen and is projected to make between $48 million and $58 million next weekend.
Read our interviews with Looney Tunes Movie director Peter Browngardt here and voice star Eric Bauza here.
Sources: Deadline.com, Boxofficemojo.com
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