Going into last weekend, there was a fair bit of mystery surrounding Daniel Chong's Hoppers. It had been a minute since Pixar last had a sizable box office win on an opening weekend with an original title (the streaming debuts of Pete Docter's Soul, Anrico Casarosa's Luca and Domee Shi's Turning Red not doing the brand any favors in the last few years), and it was unclear if audiences would turn up for the new, super silly beaver movie. By Sunday, however, the film put up numbers that registered as the best start for a non-sequel from the animation studio since Lee Unkrich's Coco in 2017... and the good times are continuing to roll in its sophomore weekend.
In an age when a great number of notable releases end up having box office numbers that are super front-loaded (looking at you, Kevin Williamson's Scream 7), Hoppers is quickly turning into a big hit with potentially long legs – though what is good news for the new animated feature isn't particularly awesome news for Vanessa Caswill's Reminders Of Him (the new Colleen Hoover adaptation). Check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis.
TITLE |
WEEKEND GROSS |
DOMESTIC GROSS |
LW |
THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Hoppers |
$28,500,000 |
$86,800,900 |
1 |
4,000 |
2. Reminders Of Him* |
$18,250,000 |
$18,250,000 |
N/A |
3,402 |
3. undertone* |
$9,339,663 |
$9,339,664 |
N/A |
2,570 |
4. Scream 7 |
$8,350,000 |
$106,547,000 |
2 |
3,243 |
5. GOAT |
$4,700,000 |
$90,556,000 |
4 |
2,946 |
6. The Bride! |
$2,110,000 |
$11,335,000 |
3 |
3,304 |
7. Kiki’s Delivery Service |
$1,668,734 |
$1,668,734 |
N/A |
249 |
8. Wuthering Heights |
$1,665,000 |
$81,927,000 |
5 |
1,901 |
9. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze |
$1,476,000 |
$80,132,813 |
N/A |
1,372 |
10. Crime 101 |
$1,136,000 |
$35,558,000 |
6 |
1,310 |
Hoppers Has A Minimal Weekend-To-Weekend Drop Following Its Stellar Debut
Writing this column every weekend, I like to keep an eye out for growing trends, and one that might be worth keeping track of in the coming year may be soft drops for popular animated features in their second week (a trend that pairs with the current popularity of animation movies in general on the big screen). Last month, Tyree Dillihay's GOAT made headlines when it demonstrated much more durability compared to Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights, as it went from having a $27.2 million domestic debut in second place to winning the box office in its second weekend with a $16.9 million haul – a tiny 38 percent drop.
This week, Hoppers pulled off the same trick, but it's an even better version. The Pixar film did much better than GOAT in its first Friday-to-Sunday, making $45.3 million in the United States and Canada, and it's now followed up that performance by adding $28.5 million to its coffers – just a 37 percent difference. It suggests that this is a movie that has people talking: the positive critical reaction got people interested, and now folks are going for a second viewing and/or telling their friends/family that they should make the trip to their local theater.
Thus far, the new 2026 movie has made $86.8 million domestically, which means that it already ranks as the third most successful new film of the year behind the aforementioned Scream 7 (which has now made $106.5 million domestically) and GOAT ($90.6 million). At the rate things are going, it should easily top both of those titles before we say goodbye to March.
Of course, being part of the incredibly successful Pixar legacy, the film has a while to go before it is considered one of the biggest titles the animation studios has put out – but it has already started climbing the ladder domestically. It has ascended out of the basement, as it has made more money than Dan Scanlon's Onward (which saw its time in theaters cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic), and it has already surpassed the earnings of Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi and Adrian Molina's Elio, which completed its unsuccessful big screen run making $73 million last summer.
Hoppers success at home continues to be matched by its performance in foreign markets as well. To date, according to Box Office Mojo, the new release has made $164.7 million worldwide. In that arena, the film has actually already eclipsed the ticket sales of GOAT (which has brought in $162.8 million globally). As far as Hollywood titles are concerned, it sits behind both Wuthering Heights ($226.4 million) and Scream 7 ($176.9 million) in the rankings for the year.
Reminders Of Him Follows Regretting You As The Second Colleen Hoover Adaptation Failing To Debut At #1
What's good news for Hoppers is not so great news for the latest Colleen Hoover adaptation. While one doesn't imagine that there is a crazy amount of crossover between the core demographics of the two releases, it certainly can be said that the former stopped the latter from getting better headlines and winning a box office crown.
Reminders Of Him had to settle for second place in its first weekend, with the film making $18.3 million domestically. Taking into account that the movie isn't a massive blockbuster and didn't have an outrageous production budget ($25 million, per Deadline), it's definitely not shaping up to be a big flop, but it's also not the success that was hoped for given the cache of the Colleen Hoover brand.
Remember: we are less than a couple years removed from the release of Justin Baldoni's It Ends With Us starring Blake Lively, which made $351.4 million worldwide before becoming the subject of headlines regarding behind the scenes drama. The industry was hopeful that the film would be the first of a string of hits featuring Hoover's name, but Josh Boone's Regretting You did nowhere near matching business when it arrived last fall (making $13.7 million domestically in its debut before ultimately grossing $90.5 million worldwide) and Reminders Of Him appears to be on a similar trajectory.
At present, there is an interesting blend of titles mixing it up on marquees around the world, and we should be seeing a big splash in a few days that mix things up even more, as Friday will see the arrival of Phil Lord and Chris Miller's Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett's Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come with Samara Weaving. The Top 10 should get a big shakeup, so be sure to return here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see how everything plays out.
