Family-Friendly Movie Expected to Crush Opening Weekend
By Movieguide® Contributor
DreamWorks Animation’s newest film, THE WILD ROBOT, hits theaters today, and Universal is expecting this film to dominate its opening weekend.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, “The critically acclaimed CGI-animated film is tracking to open in the $24 million range domestically, although more bullish forecasters believe it could easily fly past $30 million.”
THE WILD ROBOT has already made a splash in overseas box offices, “grossing $8M to date, with $2.2M from Australia. She’ll hit an additional 21 foreign markets this week including Mexico, the Middle East, and Central America,” Deadline reported.
THE WILD ROBOT is based on Peter Brown’s New York Times bestseller and follows “the journey of a robot — ROZZUM unit 7134, ‘Roz’ for short — that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling.”
Movieguide® praised the movie’s depiction of motherhood. Part of the review reads:
THE WILD ROBOT is an incredibly heartfelt, entertaining, humorous animated story. An intelligent robot nicknamed Roz is stranded on an isolated, uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the animals. She also must take care of an orphaned baby goose, whom she calls Brightbill, so he can join the migration.
WILD ROBOT is a very special movie. It delightfully affirms motherly love. Also, Roz the robot clearly has Christological, allegorical elements. She teaches the animals to love one another and clearly dies and appears to clearly resurrect. That said, her major characteristic is learning to overcome her cold, pre-programmed nature to develop a loving heart. When the company tries to re-program her, the heart takes over, but that’s not the end of the story. There are many animated action violence situations in WILD ROBOT, including animals consuming one another to survive. However, none of these situations are cruel or violent in a scary, troubling way. So, MOVIEGUIDE® recommends WILD ROBOT for children aged six and up. Adults also will love this story, if they have a heart.
The film is directed and written by Oscar-nominee Chris Sanders, who worked on Teddy Bear Award® nominees HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON and THE CROODS.
Sanders told Movieguide® that he loves how relatable Roz is as a first-time mom. “At the core of the story is that Roz has to go off programming in order to accomplish all these things, and I think that anybody who’s a parent…there are surprises and unknowns, and you’re just going to have to improvise and you’re going to have to make mistakes, but you’ve got to keep going,” he said.
Lupita Nyong’o, who voices the motherly robot, has high hopes for the film.
“I think what makes THE WILD ROBOT a compelling story is that we’re witnessing this robot adapt to the natural world,” she said. “And we’re witnessing the natural world adapt to a robot.”
The rest of the voice cast includes “Pedro Pascal as fox Fink, Catherine O’Hara as opossum Pinktail; Bill Nighy as goose Longneck; Kit Connor as gosling Brightbill and Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu as Vontra, a robot that will intersect with Roz’s life on the island. Mark Hamill, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames also round out the voice cast.”
THE WILD ROBOT is in theaters now.
- Content: +3Share:
- Content: +2