‘Wildwood’ Sparked a Much-Needed Comeback for Laika at the Box Office

Travis Knight's stop-motion animated epic opened to $12.2 million, which is on par with the opening for the company's "Kubo and the Two Strings."

The release of Laika‘s “Wildwood” at the box office this weekend was about more than just the dollars and cents or the success or failure of a single film; in some ways it was about the future of a fan-favorite film studio.

“Wildwood” is the Portland, Oregon-based stop-motion animation studio’s sixth animated feature but also the first movie released by the studio in seven years. Easily director Travis Knight’s most ambitious project to date under the Laika banner, it’s been in the works for even longer than that time gap: fans have been awaiting it for years. Heck, we’ve been talking about this movie since last year.

What Laika needed with “Wildwood” was not just a solid number but a display of genuine enthusiasm that this movie could reintroduce audiences to the studio. Even if a movie like “Coraline,” Laika’s debut, breakout stop-motion hit, was not a gangbusters blockbuster upon its release, it’s a film that has had real staying power and made a legacy for Laika in the process.

“Wildwood” grossed $12.2 million domestic in its opening weekend, placing it at No. 3 for the weekend behind “Clayface” and “You Can See Everything. It also added an additional $2.9 million from a handful of international markets and still has a lot to go. Those aren’t eye-popping numbers, and when you hear reports that the budget is around $100 million (with some others suggesting it could be one of the most expensive animated movies ever made), it’s not a surprise that many of the headlines surrounding “Wildwood” are that it could be a big money loser.

But having expensive, hand-crafted passion projects that view budgets as an after-thought are kind of part of Laika’s DNA. And it’s clear after one weekend that “Wildwood” is not the let down its previous feature, 2019’s “Missing Link,” turned out to be. That film opened to less than half of what “Wildwood” did with just $5.9 million and finished at $17 million domestic, a number “Wildwood” will easily surpass.

The better comp for “Wildwood” is “Kubo and the Two Strings,” which opened to $12.6 million and finished with $48 million domestic and $76 million worldwide. It’s also not far off from DreamWorks’ “Forgotten Island” from earlier this year, which opened to $13 million and has made $67.9 million worldwide thus far.

The key though is for “Wildwood” to repeat the stellar holds and word of mouth over time that some of its past hits have done. All five of its previous films have had hefty multiples, including “Coraline” (4.5x), “ParaNorman” (4.1x), and “Kubo and the Two Strings” (3.8x). A 3.8 multiple for “Wildwood,” same as “Kubo,” would have it finish with roughly $46.3 million domestic.

Some of the early exit tracking suggests it has a chance to be even better than that. “Wildwood” received an A CinemaScore and almost universal positive scores and “recommend” grades from PostTrak, in addition to a 99 percent on Rotten Tomatoes at time of writing. It had strong per-screen-averages across 395 PLFs and some Dolby Cinemas in particular, and it even packed houses in places like Portland where the film is set and pays homage.

Dave Burke, Laika’s Chief Marketing Officer and an EP on the film, told IndieWire those figures suggest it could even add a few screens beyond the 2,940 it had this first weekend. Alamo Drafthouse for one played the film on 11 screens and is looking to add another six, Burke said. Also of note is that this is one of Fathom Entertainment’s first truly wide releases for an original film after having big success re-releasing “Coraline,” so both companies are viewing these numbers as encouraging.

“I think we needed to prove ourselves as the new kid on the block, and I think the data points to the fact that there’s a really compelling business case for exhibition to get on even more robustly and support the film in the kind of coming weeks,” Burke said.

Many of Laika’s films have been darker in nature, and “Wildwood” does not shy away from that. The studio has been upfront in its marketing that the film is PG-13, that it aims to reach a general audience rather than kids, and is based on a middlegrade novel from Colin Meloy, better known as the lead singer of the indie folk band The Decemberists. It’s an intense and often violent display of puppetry with a third act that resembles a “Lord of the Rings” war sequence. But even so Burke said the film had a strong showing from the under 34 crowd and a good mix of tweens coming along with their parents. It even received a 5-star grade from the parents’ guide Common Sense Media. These are the types of fans Laika needs to cultivate to get them to revisit their older titles and keep them excited as the company is set to expand into live-action films and whatever other passion project Travis Knight has cooking next.

“People have just really recognized from the get go this is an extraordinary undertaking, and there’s been a real sense that everyone is willing for us to succeed, and I think that is something that we don’t take lightly,” Burke said. “We have a responsibility to make sure that this film gets seen by the widest possible audience, and that’s why I’m so focused on the next couple of weeks, but also its afterlife and what its legacy looks like.”