With Tom & Jerry’s surprise performance atop the U.S. Box Office last week, and cinemas slowly reopening in New York City, predictions may have been a little too bullish in terms of how Disney’s latest animated feature film, Raya and the Last Dragon, might perform this weekend.
With a domestic take of $8.6 million, Raya and the Last Dragon came in at the lower end of expectations, indicating that despite the impressive haul that the cat-and-mouse duo managed last week, audiences might not be ready to flood back to theatres en masse.
You could put it down to the Disney+ factor, with the film available for a premium $30 price on the streaming service, but without hard uptake statistics from Disney we’ll have no idea whether people decided to stay at home and watch it, or if people just had animated dragon fatigue and saw little appeal in Raya. Throw in the fact that Disney refused to strike a deal with exhibitors for a larger chunk of revenue, meaning that it played in fewer theatres because some chains wouldn’t screen it, and the performance analysis becomes even more difficult.
Elsewhere in the chart Tom & Jerry continued to impress, grabbing another $6.6 million for a running total of $23 million, while the much delayed, critically maligned Doug Liman sci-fi Chaos Walking started its short walk to bargain bins everywhere with a $3.8 million gross.
You can see the entire chart over at BoxOfficeMojo.
