‘Raya And The Last Dragon’ Lacks Fire With $8.6M Debut As Pic Hits Disney+ & NYC Reopens
While Disney’s animated release of Raya and the Last Dragon led the weekend box office with $8.6M at 2,045 theaters, the movie’s less than stellar result has left agita in the bellies of many exhibition and studio executives. Read on.
Raya‘s start is 41% below last weekend’s $14.1M opening for Warner Bros.’ Tom & Jerry, and that movie was available for free on HBO Max, versus Disney’s $30 to Disney+ subscribers to watch the film. Raya‘s sour B.O. can largely be attributed to No. 3 exhibitor Cinemark, as well as Harkins, and Canada’s Cineplex blocking the title over Disney’s refusal to budge on terms give the title’s availability on Disney+. Raya‘s opening was also less than Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Croods: A New Age’s $9.7M 3-day take during its Thanksgiving stretch. There’s also the notion that Croods: A New Age may have been more of a four-quadrant title than Raya, which leans mostly female.
There was chatter among rivals heading into the weekend that Tom & Jerry could possibly steal No. 1 away from Raya, given how that film didn’t have Cinemark. That wasn’t the case. What’s clear here is that the second weekend drop on these theatrical-HBO Max titles are steeper than expected. Remember, Wonder Woman 1984 dropped 67% in weekend 2, and that was over a New Year’s Weekend, typically a big time for moviegoing.
The social media chatter for Raya was mixed-to-positive according to RelishMix. This despite the fact that Disney’s online marketing machine was in full operation here during the pandemic for the release. Says RelishMix: “Rayais benefiting from the social Mouse House expansion over the year with addition of the Disney+ 9.6M SMU, plugging in Disney Animation 25.1M, big Walt Disney’s 79.4M social media universe and a unique social page for Raya which is clocking 100K. Since the Super Bowl spot drop, the two key Disney big game spots are at 8.2M views, with 81M YouTube owned and earned views. There’s also 25 videos on Facebook with 14.8M views. The overall social media universe for the Disney animated feature counts 259.1 million which is at 86% of the norm for family animated. All things considered by pandemic stats, that’s good.”
CHAOS WALKING
From what I hear, the movie is collateral damage in Lionsgate’s executive shuffle between former Motion Picture Group co-President Erik Feig, who left in February 2018, and returning Motion Picture Group Co-Chair Joe Drake. The first cut of the Liman film was quite rough, however, Feig is known to turn such frogs into princes. Essentially after his departure, the film had the stain of being part of the former regime and there wasn’t any heart left at the studio to get it into greater shape beyond the reshoots.
Lionsgate, of course, is known for its YA streak with Hunger Games and Divergent, however, what a wasted opportunity here to not get a feature like this in better form. The movie had a social media star in its marketing with Holland who pulls in close to 48M on his social media and co-star Nick Jonas who has a social media universe of 58.3M followers. Those two rep 75% of the pic’s overall 139.5M SMU.
