Box Office: ‘Call Of The Wild’ Pulls A ‘Dolittle’ As ‘Boy 2’ Opens Soft

Call of the Wild opened with $24.8 million in its debut Fri-Sun frame as The Boy II opened with a mediocre $5.9 million and Emma snagged $230,000 in just five theaters.

20th Century and Disney’s Call of the Wild opened with an objectively solid $24.8 million debut weekend. That’s a 3.09x multiplier, which is very good even for a kid flick. For what it’s worth, the Harrison Ford/Karen Gillan/Bradley Whitford/Dan Stevens flick rose 25% on Saturday while, for example, Sonic the Hedgehog went up 88% from Friday to Saturday, which explains why it’s not the weekend’s top movie. So, no, Call of the Wild was not the top-ranked movie of the weekend, which at the very least would have made for an easier post-debut marketing narrative. Nonetheless, a near-$25 million launch for a Call of the Wild movie, along with an A- from Cinemascore, is pretty good, save for one key problem. It cost $125 million to produce.

Directed by Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon), the Harrison Ford-led adaptation of the Jack London novel earned mixed-positive reviews but seemingly little pre-release buzz. So credit to marketing for getting folks to show up for a film that seemed a lot like the kind of project that now goes straight to Disney+. The good news is that it overperformed despite the presence of Sonic the Hedgehog in the marketplace. While Harrison Ford hasn’t been a “butts in seats” draw in two decades (outside of Star Wars and Indiana Jones), he was clearly an added value element. The huzzahs for his star turn probably helped. The bad news is how much it cost to make, a number that is ridiculous for this sort of movie.

It’s going to need long legs and strong overseas numbers (it only earned $15 million in 60% of its international footprint) to even think about breaking even. Like Dolittle (which just topped $200 million worldwide), Call of the Wild may pull “best case scenario” business and still be a big money loser. This was previously a Fox project, but it’s Disney’s first big 2020 release after they dropped all of their mega-movies (Star Wars IX, Avengers 4, Frozen II, etc.) into 2019. As much grief as Universal (correctly) got for spending $175 million on a Dr. Dolittle movie just weeks after Cats ($73 million on a $95 million budget), Universal has No Time to Die (overseas), F9: The Fast Saga and Minions: The Rise of Gru waiting in the wings.

Disney’s 2020 is slightly less “sure thing,” even if Onward is pretty good, Mulan looks great and Jungle Cruise looks like oodles of fun. Regardless, this is another whiff for the whole Fox/Disney relationship. Heck, even Ford v Ferrari wasn’t quite a hit, as its excellent $117 million domestic performance was matched by a mere $108 million overseas, for a $225 million cume on a $98 million budget. Nobody’s expecting much from The New Mutants, so at this point it looks like 20th Century Pictures and Searchlight Pictures are now mostly there to pad Disney’s overall cumulative numbers (for market share) and to snag major Oscar nominations. Hopefully Ryan Reynolds’ Free Guy will reverse this grim trend, otherwise Avatar 2 is a long way off.

The only other wide newbie this weekend was Brahms: The Boy II (amusingly titled like the second Rambo movie). Lakeshore and STX Entertainment’s The Boy was an odd duck in early 2016, opening with a “fine, I guess” $10.5 million debut weekend (during a Fri-Sun frame punctuated by lousy weather) but then legging it out to $35.8 million. Oddly enough, its relative overperformance (along with A24’s The Witch earning $25 million domestic on an $8.8 million debut) was the first sign that mainstream theatrical horror was about to awaken from a relative two-year slump. William Bell’s “scary doll” flick was no classic, but it earned $74.1 million worldwide on a $10 million budget partially on the strength of its genuinely wacky (but narratively fair) climax.

So, yeah, four years later, we’ve got The Boy II. This is a “folks were only curious the first time” sequel, like The Woman In Black or Silent Hill. With miserable reviews and little in the way of buzz, The Boy II earned $5.9 million over its debut weekend. Only die-hard horror nerds care, and frankly much of their interest is mostly “ironic,” as The Boy 2 now plays like just another low-budget, single-location PG-13 chiller. STX Entertainment will absolutely make money from the $10 million-budgeted flick thanks to foreign pre-sales (and a mere $2.5 million exposure), but I doubt anyone is popping champagne this weekend (and theaters won’t be happy). I’m expecting The Invisible Man to give horror junkies a real jolt next weekend.

Speaking of The Witch, the big platform debut this weekend is Focus Features’ Emma, starring Anya-Taylor Joy. The latest adaptation of the classic Jane Austin novel, which got the updated revamp treatment in 1995 with Clueless and a traditional version in 1996 with Gwyneth Paltrow in the lead, has earned generally positive reviews heading into the weekend. The Autumn de Wilde-directed flick earned around $230,000 over the weekend in five theaters. That is a promising $46,000 per-theater average. A debut this big outside of award seasons is encouraging, especially for a relatively mainstream and upbeat commercial offering, for its expansion. It also means I may be able to see it in Westlake (instead of having to drive down to Hollywood) sooner rather than later.