The Wild Robot’ Powering Up to $35 Million Opening, ‘Megalopolis’ on Track for Less Than $5 Million

"The Wild Robot," a new movie from Universal and DreamWorks Animation, has opened to a better-than-expected $34 million opening weekend.

The animated film directed by Chris Sanders was originally expected to make between $24 million and $30 million its first weekend. The family-friendly film will surpass Warner Bros.' "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" at the box office with $11.3 million at its opening on Friday. With $16 million in its fourth week of release, Tim Burton's horror comedy is on track to take second place on the box office charts.

After making its world premiere last summer at the Cannes Film Festival, Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis" will finally be released in theaters this weekend. In any case, it's on target to make $4.6 million in its initial end of the week, not exactly starting projections of $5 million to $7 million. From 1,854 North American theaters, it has so far earned $1.84 million. The majority of Coppola's budget, which totals $120 million, came from his own personal resources. The film will be distributed and promoted by Lionsgate in exchange for a distribution fee. Megalopolis is currently in fifth place at the box office, trailing only the action movie "Devara: Part 1," which has a $6.7 million opening weekend projection.

The opening weekend of Paramount's "Transformers One," starring Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry as the young Optimus Prime and Megatron, saw the film fall to third this week. It is anticipated that its second frame will bring in $9.3 million.

Sony's "Saturday Night," the origin story for "Saturday Night," opened in five theaters in New York and Los Angeles this week before going wide in two weeks. It opened with a target of $255,000 and made $107,000 on Friday. This weekend, the movie starring Jason Reitman is expected to average $51,000 per theater.

Lupita Nyong'o plays Roz, an adorable robot, in "The Wild Robot." Roz must adapt to her new environment after being abandoned on an unknown planet teeming with wildlife. Pedro Pascal, Kit Conner, Catherine O'Hara, Bill Nighy, Mark Hamill, Ving Rhames, and Stephanie Hsu all lend their voices to the characters' interactions with various animals.

Adam Driver plays the leader of New Rome, a sprawling city in the futuristic metropolis, in "Megalopolis." Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman, and Dustin Hoffman are all in the cast.