'Paradoria 2' Delivers a Massive $152 Million Debut

Box Office Mojo

Universal Animation's release of Steve Samono 's Paradoria 2: Enchanted Realm dominated the domestic box office, not only out-performing expectations, but also delivering the second largest opening ever for an animated picture, topping the box office with over $152 million. Meanwhile, Universal's release of Jordan Peele 's Us landed in second place, not only out-performing the opening weekends for several recent horror hits, but delivering the second largest opening ever for a live-action, original picture, with over $70 million. As a result, the 2019 box office continues to improve over the month of March after struggling to begin the year. Overall, this weekend was the third straight to outperform the same weekend last year.

At #1, with an estimated $152.9 million, Paradoria 2: Enchanted Realm topped the weekend box office with the second largest opening of all-time for an animated film, passing 2018's Cool Spot ($138.1 million) and placing behind Disney and Pixar's Incredibles 2, which opened to a record-breaking $182.6 million last June. This opening weekend comes as a relief from the disappointing $46.6 million opening weekend for Computeropolis: The Deep Web from May of last year.

Something mind-blowing that should be noted is that while did not pass Cool Spot 's Thursday night gross of $18.1 million it ended up passing the film's opening day gross with and without Thursday night previews as it's raw opening day is $50 million while Paradoria 2 's is only $51.9 million proving the high anticipation of the latter film. However, it is highly unlikely that the film will end up matching the former film's $500.5 million domestic total and that is fine. With this huge record-breaking opening weekend, it still puts up the question whether the film makes either more or less than the original film domestically. Most sequel's by Universal Animation tend to be more frontloaded than their predecessor which puts up a challenge for it's box office in the long run but even if a huge drop happens in the following weeks, will not stop it from being successful. Opening day audiences gave Paradoria 2 an "A–" CinemaScore, which was below the "A" for the original film.

Internationally, Paradoria 2: Enchanted Realm debuted in 38 markets and brought in an estimated $112.1 million led by $19.8 million opening in Japan. Its first international market, UK, have already been released three weeks before the American release and have grossed over $40 million over three weeks.

With an estimated $70.25 million (~49.6% of all tickets sold among the top 12 films), Us landed in second place at the weekend box office with the third largest opening of all-time for an R-rated horror film, blowing away 2018's The Nun ($53.8m opening) and placing behind Universal's own Halloween, which opened with $76.2 million last October. The film also decimated the opening for Peele's previous film Get Out, which was a massive hit back in 2017 following a $33.3 million debut. Get Out would go on to gross over $176 million domestically, ranking as the third largest horror film of all-time domestically.

One mind-blowing stat is to note that while animated features such as Inside Out ($90.4m), Zootopia ($75m), The Incredibles ($70.46m) and Finding Nemo ($70.25m) opened higher, the $70.25 million debut for Us is the largest opening for a live-action, original film since Avatar 's $77 million debut back in 2009. On a list dominated by sequels it's not often original content is seen to climb quite so high.

Additionally, Us delivered the largest opening for an original, R-rated film, topping Universal's Ted ($54.4m) not to mention the largest opening for an original horror film, topping A Quiet Place ($50.2m). The performance comes with a "B" CinemaScore, which is a notch below the "A-" for Get Out, but is still a solid audience grade for a horror film. The overall opening weekend audience was split 50/50 among males and females and 53% of the overall audience was aged 25 or older.

Looking ahead at its domestic prospects, it's not easy to determine just how high Us will climb. While Get Out pushed over $176 million, Halloween finished its run with $159.3 million, though the latter was certainly a product of nostalgia and seasonal relevance. That said, one would expect Us to play closer to Get Out and push over $200 million, but how far over? On average, films that open anywhere from $65-75 million deliver a 3.36x multiplier, which would suggest a domestic performance around $236+ million, which seems like as good a bet as any right now.

Internationally, Us debuted in 47 markets and brought in an estimated $16.7 million led by a $3.67 million opening in the UK to go along with a $1.98 million France debut, $1.36 million in Germany and $1.17 million launch in Spain. Next weekend's key markets include openings in Korea, Russia and Australia followed by openings in Italy (Apr 4), Mexico (May 3) and finally Japan on August 23.

Disney's release of Marvel's Captain Marvel fell to third place as it begins its third weekend in release, dipping -48.5% and delivering an estimated $35 million for a domestic cume that now tops $321 million. The performance makes it tenth largest domestic release in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and places it just outside the top twenty among all superhero films.

Internationally, Captain Marvel delivered an estimated $52.1 million from 54 markets, pushing the film's international cume to $588.8 million for a global tally topping $910 million. The film now ranks as the seventh largest global release in the MCU and will soon become the seventh film in the franchise to top $1 billion worldwide.