Megalopolis crashes at the US box office, disaster start for Coppola

With only $4 million in revenue for its first weekend across the Atlantic, the filmmaker's latest film is soundly beaten by DreamWorks' latest, The Wild Robot.

The predicted tragedy took place. Francis Ford Coppola had a catastrophic weekend. His work so long continued, Megalopoliscrashed in a biblical way. Raising 4 million dollars in a vast park of 7,854 theaters, the film carried by Adam Driver did less well than the initial forecasts, already not great, which estimated a launch between 5 and 7 million dollars. This would have already been financially disastrous for Coppola and his largely self-funded $120 million project. The disaster is therefore worse than expected.

In comparison, the passion project of Kevin Costner, Horizonreleased this summer and financed largely by him (the budget was around $100 million), started at $11 million and ended his career at $36 million. We were already on a good little flop. But with Megalopoliswe are moving towards an industrial accident of historic magnitude. Especially since the feature film, poorly received by the press and coldly received at Cannes, is not the masterpiece that some were hoping for.

Despite its wide distribution, Megalopolis therefore only comes in sixth position at the US box office, very far from the new leader, The Wild Robot. The animated film from Universal and DreamWorks takes $35 million in revenue (in 3,962 theaters) and rides on the recent successes of animation in cinema, Vice-Versa 2 has Despicable Me 4 passing through Garfield. It cost $78 million to produce. But The Wild Robot – which will be released in two weeks in France – benefits from rave reviews which should allow him to envisage a peaceful career

It dethrones for the moment Beetlejuice2 (while waiting for Joker 2 takes power next week). Tim Burton's spooky sequel falls into second place with another $16 million in its fourth weekend. The film has already grossed $250 million in the United States and $342 million globally.

Finally, we will note in this US box office the still disappointing performance of the animated blockbuster, Transformers One. Young Optimus Prime and Megatron have already earned only $9.1 million in week 2. A brutal 63% drop in attendance. The Hasbro feature film has earned less than $40 million across the Atlantic so far.