‘Onward' is Tops With $40 Million Debut; Ben Affleck-Led ‘The Way Back' Opens at #3

Disney and Pixar’s latest original “Onward” delivered solidly if a bit below expectations amid Coronavirus concerns, as “The Invisible Man” holds strong.

“Onward,” Pixar’s return to the original story managed around a $40M debut domestically, as it appears to have delivered on the lower side of expectations despite highly positive critical and audience scores (96% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes). To compare it to Pixar’s last large original outing, 2017’s “Coco” debuted to around $72M. However, it was a thanksgiving release. Internationally, the medieval fantasy animation starring Chris Pratt and Tom Holland brought in $28M, giving it around a $70M start, no doubt lower than Pixar would like but not a disastrous start for Disney.

Dropping down to second place after one week at the top is Universal and Blumhouse’s “The Invisible Man”. The highly successful horror/thriller managed $15.1M in its second weekend, bringing its domestic total to around $52M, whilst internationally the film added $17.3M lifting its overall global tally to nearly $100M off a measly $7M budget. Another win for Jason Blum.

In third this week is another new release, Warner Bros’ Ben Affleck starring “The Way Back”. Debuting to solid reviews and off of a $20M budget, the film managed a very solid $8.5M domestic and around $640K from 14 international markets. However, next weekend the film will open in key overseas markets including the UK throughout April.

Behind Warner’s film is Paramount’s video game phenomenon “Sonic the Hedgehog” which mustered $8M for a domestic total of $140M, whilst another $412M internationally sees the film pushing $300M worldwide.

At the bottom of the top five this week is 20th Century’s “The Call of the Wild” which brought in $7M domestically to lift its disappointing total to north of $50M, whilst thanks to another $4.8M internationally, the film will finally pass $100M next weekend.

Elsewhere, just missing out on the top five is Focus’ “Emma” starring Anya Taylor-Joy which managed $5M in its first weekend of wide release, whilst Sony are the first studio this year to have a $200M domestic grosser as their all-conquering sequel “Bad Boys for Life” passed the landmark. The films global tally is now over $400M.

The most notable limited release saw Kelly Reichardt’s latest film, the incredibly well-received “First Cow” take $96K from four locations.

Next weekend sees Universal finally releasing“The Hunt” after pulling the release last year following backlash against the film’s trailer and story. Elsewhere “I Still Believe” from Lionsgate will also debut, alongside Sony’s Vin Diesel and Guy Pearce starring “Bloodshot”.

1. Onward – $40M (Debut)

2. The Invisible Man – $15M

3. The Way Back – $8.5M (Debut)

4. Sonic the Hedgehog – $8M

5. The Call of the Wild – $7M

6. Emma – $5M

7. Bad Boys for Life – $3M

8. Birds of Prey – $2.2M

9. My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising – $1.5M

10. 1917 – $1.4M