Things are looking up for Sony Pictures Animation’s “Goat,” which thanks to strong audience word of mouth was able to take advantage of kids on school break for Presidents Day to become the highest grossing film at the box office on Monday with $8.3 million, bringing its 4-day domestic opening to an industry estimated $35.5 million.
While that wasn’t enough to take the top spot from Warner Bros.’ “Wuthering Heights,” which became that studio’s ninth straight No. 1 release with $37.5 million domestic and $83 million worldwide, estimates for this original animated film about a small goat with big hoop dreams have been steadily ticking up over the course of the weekend, earning a launch similar to the $36 million 3-day opening of Universal/DreamWorks’ “Dog Man” early last year.
With the exception of Illumination’s “Migration,” theatrically released original animated films have primarily been the domain of Disney and Pixar since the pandemimc, largely to poor results. But the biggest original success from those studios, “Elemental,” had to overcome poor pre-release awareness and interest to leg out both in the U.S. and overseas, turning a $29.6 million domestic opening into a $154 million domestic/$494.5 million global cume.
The early signs are there for “Goat” to follow a similar path, as estimates for this four-day weekend rose from $30 million pre-release to its $35.5 million actual.
In a pattern akin to Sony’s previous original hit “KPop Demon Hunters,” which was sold to Netflix, early viewers dazzled by “Goat” have been sharing clips of its kinetic and colorful basketball sequences and of the diverse designs and outfits of its characters, which range from panthers to komodo dragons.
That organic word-of-mouth has proven to be more effective than any studio marketing campaign when it comes to convincing audiences to try a family film with no familiar IP, and if “Goat” can leg out to a $100 million-plus domestic run, it will have that buzz to thank for it. The movie will have 17 more days as the newest family film in theaters before it gets competition from Pixar’s “Hoppers.”
Like “Goat,” “Hoppers” is an original title in a year that will also bring DreamWorks’ “Forgotten Island” and Disney’s “Hexed” in the second half. If these films can succeed — and that doesn’t mean $1 billion-plus totals like “Zootopia 2” — that will be a welcome sign to theaters which would rather not have to rely solely on franchises from the 2000s and 2010s to bring families into their auditoriums.
