Laika’s ‘Wildwood’ Opens To About $11 Million With A Perfect Critics’ Score

Wildwood, the new stop-motion feature from Laika, opened to an estimated $4.3 million on Friday and is heading for an opening weekend of about $11 million to $12 million, in third place, according to Saturday estimates reported by TheWrap. The figures are estimates; the weekend chart will not be final until Monday.

TheWrap put the film in 2,752 locations. Deadline’s figures, reported by Animation Magazine, counted the release wider — 2,942 North American theaters and a Friday gross of $4.28 million, effectively the same opening day at a different theater count. JoBlo, in its Saturday update, pegged the weekend finish at $11 million; Deadline’s estimate is $11.2 million.

The reviews and the audience grades sit at the top of the scale. Wildwood holds a 100 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 98 percent audience score, an 85 on Metacritic, and an A CinemaScore from opening-night audiences. The A ties Kubo and the Two Strings as the best CinemaScore in Laika’s history and improves on the B+ given to Missing Link in 2019. The Hollywood Reporter’s critic Frank Scheck called the film “stupendous in every aspect.”

The weekend itself belongs to Clayface. DC Studios’ film is projected to win the weekend at $23 million to $25 million, Deadline reported, with A24’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything second at about $19 million to $20 million after expanding from roughly 800 theaters to more than 2,500. Last weekend’s winner, Street Fighter, falls to about $9.5 million in its second weekend, a drop of about 79 percent, according to JoBlo.

The opening comes against a far larger production cost. TheWrap reports the budget as well above $100 million; other reports, Animation Magazine’s among them, put the production budget at $100 million. Laika released the film in North America through Fathom Entertainment, and Deadline reported that premium large-format screens accounted for 15 percent of the weekend gross and that the West was the film’s strongest region, at 32 percent.

Wildwood is directed by Travis Knight, Laika’s president and chief executive, from a screenplay by Chris Butler, and is based on the 2011 novel by Colin Meloy, illustrated by Carson Ellis. Peyton Elizabeth Lee voices Prue McKeel, a Portland teenager who enters the Wildwood — the enchanted forest at the edge of the city — with her classmate Curtis, voiced by Jacob Tremblay, after her baby brother is taken. The voice cast also includes Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett and Awkwafina, and Caleb Deschanel is the film’s director of photography. The film runs 131 minutes, is rated PG-13, and had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 11.

Laika, based in Hillsboro, Oregon, builds its films by hand, one frame at a time, and Wildwood is its sixth feature: Coraline (2009), ParaNorman (2012), The Boxtrolls (2014), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) and Missing Link (2019). Knight, the son of Nike co-founder Phil Knight, made his directing debut with Kubo, which won the BAFTA for best animated film and was nominated for two Academy Awards. Wildwood is the studio’s first feature in seven years; Knight also directed this summer’s live-action Masters of the Universe.

Measured against the studio’s own history, the opening day is mid-pack. Figures compiled by box office analyst Luiz Fernando put Friday grosses, previews included, at $4.9 million for The Boxtrolls, $4.6 million for ParaNorman, $4.5 million for Coraline, $4.3 million for Wildwood, $4.1 million for Kubo and the Two Strings and $1.6 million for Missing Link. On those numbers, Wildwood’s projected finish lands on par with Kubo’s opening weekend — a start built on the strength of its scores rather than the width of its release.

Sources: TheWrap; JoBlo; Rotten Tomatoes; Deadline; Animation Magazine.