Third Place, First-Class Result: Reading the Wildwood Opening the Right Way

Foggy forest with tall bare tree trunks and dry ground in autumn

Headlines love a winner, so a film that opens in third place usually gets a polite shrug. I think that would be the wrong reaction to Wildwood. LAIKA's hand-built fantasy took an estimated $11.6 million from 2,942 theaters in its first North American weekend, behind Clayface at $24 million and You Can See Everything at $19.5 million. On paper, bronze. In context, something closer to gold.

Start with expectations. Early projections sat between $6 million and $8 million, and the stated hope going into the weekend was simply to reach double digits. Thursday previews were around $1 million. Beating tracking by that much, for an original-feeling stop-motion film, is not a small thing.

The LAIKA yardstick

The fairest comparison is with LAIKA itself. Missing Link opened to $5.9 million in 2019. Kubo and the Two Strings, also directed by Travis Knight, opened to $12.6 million in 2016 and went on to $48 million domestically. Wildwood landed just under Kubo and roughly double Missing Link. For a studio that only releases a film every few years, that is a healthy sign.

It also got close to Forgotten Island, a big-studio animated release from DreamWorks and Universal that opened to $13 million. Wildwood did it without a major studio behind it, which brings me to the part I find most interesting.

A different kind of release

The film is distributed in the U.S. by Fathom Entertainment, a company best known for event cinema and special engagements, and owned by AMC, Cinemark and Regal. LAIKA chose Fathom after strong re-releases, including a 15th-anniversary Coraline run that earned $56 million worldwide. LAIKA's David Burke called it a strategy that preserved the studio's independence. If this works, other independent animators will be watching closely.

Signs it could keep going

Audiences gave it an A CinemaScore, level with Kubo and ahead of Missing Link's B+. Premium large formats brought in 15% of the weekend, and women made up 51% of the audience, which suggests it is reaching beyond families with small kids. Family films often build slowly through the holidays, and good word of mouth is the fuel for that. It also took about $3 million from 11 international territories.

The honest caveat

Stop-motion is expensive and slow. Wildwood reportedly cost $100 million and took around 16 years to reach the screen. An $11.6 million opening is a first step, not a finish line. It will need a long domestic run, solid international business and later home and streaming revenue to pay off.

Still, I would rather root for this than for another sequel. Based on Colin Meloy's book, with a voice cast that includes Carey Mulligan, Tom Waits and Mahershala Ali, it is the kind of film Knight calls "a celebration of artistry over algorithms." If you want the full weekend chart and audience breakdown, see this analysis of the Wildwood opening weekend.

Third place, yes. But a very good third place.

Photo: Martin G / Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/15222306/)

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