‘The Bride!’ Bombs as ‘Hoppers’ Surges: 4 Takeaways From a Busy March Box Office Start

The start of the March box office brought some much-needed good news for one studio and a hard fall for another that had been flying high over the past year.

For the first time in nine years, an original animated movie earned a $40 million-plus opening weekend. Disney/Pixar’s “Hoppers,” enjoying strong critical and audience reception, earned an estimated $46 million domestic launch with a global start of $88 million. With three weeks before “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” arrives, it has a good shot of passing the $154 million domestic run of Pixar’s 2023 comeback hit “Elemental.”

And then there’s Warner Bros.’ “The Bride!”, which bombed this weekend with an opening of just $7.3 million domestic — less than half of the $19 million start that Warner’s “Mickey 17” made one year ago — and $13.6 million worldwide.

With a reported production budget of $80 million and around $65 million in marketing, “The Bride!” will leave behind a loss that upcoming films like New Line’s “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” and “Mortal Kombat II,” as well as DC’s “Supergirl,” will have to make up for WB. Theaters, meanwhile, will have to contend with one less studio film bringing in steady revenue during a release period that historically has served as a mini-summer for the industry.

So why did “Hoppers” hit when other original animated films didn’t, and why did “The Bride!” fail so spectacularly when Warner Bros. has been on a hot streak with backing bold creative visions? Appealing to a wider general audience and an easy-to-market premise helped the former, while a core demo miss and muddled tone hindered the latter.

Here are the major takeaways from an eventful start to the March box office.

‘Hoppers’ is a hit with everyone

As “Hoppers” brought in rave reception from early moviegoers, the audience demographic data showed an interesting deviation from the usual breakdown for animated movies. Data for PostTrak showed that 51% of audiences surveyed were family audiences, with 49% general.

For hit animated films like “Zootopia 2” or even Sony’s February hit “Goat,” the family share on PostTrak tends to be in the 60-65% range. But the more even split between families and general audiences suggests that the word-of-mouth for “Hoppers” — 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and an A on CinemaScore — could have an even further reach than Goat” and “Elemental,” the last two original animated films that struck a chord with audiences.

Over the next three weeks between now and Easter (which also marks the return of Illumination’s “Mario”), schools across the U.S. will be steadily rolling through spring break. According to theatrical sources, 26% of kids will be out of school the week of March 13, with 11% the week of March 20 and 20% the week of March 27. That means there will be plenty of opportunity for “Hoppers” to get steady turnout of families throughout the coming month.

But if general audiences continue to show up in equal measure, then there’s a puncher’s chance that even with “Super Mario Galaxy” likely to weigh down the late stage of its theatrical run, “Hoppers” could reach $200 million in domestic grosses. If it does, it will be the first original animated film to do so since “Coco” in November 2017.

Talking animals sell

Since the pandemic, Hollywood has struggled to market family films without an IP hook. The few original films prior to 2026 that have worked theatrically, like “Elemental,” have had to rebound from low pre-release buzz with strong post-release audience word-of-mouth.

So it’s notable that “Hoppers” had substantially more pre-release interest than most recent original animated titles even before the strong reviews rolled in, so much so that pre-release tracking started for the film in the high $30 million range, creeping up towards $40 million in the final days before release.

Part of this can be attributed to a pretty clear trend throughout animated history: talking animals are easy to sell to kids and parents. It is no guarantee of “Zootopia”-level success — look at the comparatively modest $239.6 million global run of DreamWorks’ “Bad Guys 2” last year — but it is an easier premise to convey than something like “Elio,” whose charming second lead Glordon is an eyeless insectoid alien whose villainous father wants to take over an alien organization called the Communiverse.

The selling point for “Hoppers,” with its cute protagonists, familiar Earth setting and basic plot of a human who inhabits a beaver’s body to talk to animals, could be more easily packaged in a way that got the masses interested than the more complicated premises of “Elio” and “Elemental.” Beyond “Avatar” (which is referenced in the movie), “Hoppers” comparisons could be made to films like “Brother Bear” and “Princess and the Frog,” in which humans talk with animals from the natural world. It’s a story that’s original, but at least distantly familiar enough for people to get it, and all combined with goofy, memeable gags.

Armed with a more effective trailer, Disney ran the marketing for “Hoppers” ahead of its Hollywood record-setting hit “Zootopia 2” this winter, and then again last month in front of Sony Animation’s own talking animal movie, “Goat.”

It’s the one-two punch that has set many a film up for box office success: begin marketing via another studio film that’s a hit, and follow through with a trailer ahead of yet another studio’s film closer to release that appeals to the same core audience. “Wuthering Heights” did that with “The Housemaid,” and now “Hoppers” has done that with “Zootopia 2” and “Goat.”

Missing the core demo

But what happens when a studio identifies a core demo and then fails to bring that demo into theaters in any meaningful way? You get what happened with “The Bride!”

As critics in both positive and negative reviews noted, “The Bride!” is a film with a lot of concepts on its mind. It’s a macabre monster movie inspired by “Bonnie and Clyde” and noir gangster films. It has highly stylized dance sequences that revel in making overt homages to “Young Frankenstein.” And it is also a female empowerment story, showing the titular Bride claim her own identity and inspire a feminist uprising in the process.

The trailers and marketing for “The Bride!” leaned into the latter, showing Jessie Buckley’s Bride whipping out a pistol in a ballroom, yelling out in defiance against a society that rejects her, and rejecting the title “Bride of Frankenstein.” The trailer’s presence in front of “Wuthering Heights” shows that Warner saw potential overlap in the core audience for this film and Emerald Fennell’s steamy, tragic romance that brought the female crowd to theaters.

But that’s not how the meager opening weekend audience for “The Bride!” turned out, as PostTrak polls showed a gender breakdown of 53% male, 47% female. Only 43% of those surveyed gave the film the highest score of a “Definite recommend” rating.

With female audiences not buying into the feminist selling point and moviegoers at large not responding to the movie’s aesthetics or pulpy story, “The Bride!” was left in the same position as Warner’s 2024 bomb “Joker: Folie a Deux”: a film with a singular, director-driven vision but without any sense among the masses as to who the film was for.

Combine that with the fact that audiences could already get their Frankenstein fill with Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-nominated adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel at home on Netflix, and all drawing power for “The Bride!” vanished before the film could even begin to find its footing in theaters.

It is the flip side of the risk-taking approach that critics of Hollywood want studios to take more often and which Warner Bros. film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy embraced to great success in 2025. Sparing no expense on bringing a director’s vision to life is almost certain to net them a Best Picture Oscar when either “Sinners” or “One Battle After Another” wins next week, but “The Bride!” ended an otherwise stunning run of nine No.1 openings in a row.

But if outcomes like “The Bride!” didn’t happen, then it wouldn’t be a risk, would it?

Meanwhile at Imax…

In the post-pandemic box office, Imax has become the kingmaker. Between taking a larger share of the ticket sales for Hollywood’s biggest hits and diversifying its global offerings to include more international fare, the premium format reached a company record $1.2 billion in box office grosses in 2025.

But at least on the Hollywood side, it hasn’t been a quarter to write home about for Imax. Paramount/Spyglass’ “Scream 7” was a notable exception when it brought in $16 million from global Imax screenings, but “The Bride!,” which got the coveted “Filmed for Imax” label (meaning it was shot to be shown in Imax, but not with Imax film cameras), grossed just $2 million in Imax this weekend.

By comparison, Neon/Universal’s “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” made $4.3 million from Imax screenings, including $3.25 million from a one-week engagement in North America. In comparison, Amazon MGM’s “Mercy,” which also got the “Filmed for Imax” label, grossed $2.6 million on its opening weekend in the format.

While Imax may account for 15% of the weekend grosses for “The Bride!”, such low grosses show that when films that are high profile enough to get the company’s interest falter, so too do their box office returns. This is partly why Imax has broadened its horizons, reducing its dependency on Hollywood by lending its support to top movies from other parts of the world.

Look no further than China with its recently completed Lunar New Year Period. Imax screens in China showed the acclaimed rally car racing film “Pegasus 3” as well as the martial arts film “Blades of the Guardians,” films that have grossed $595 million and $185 million at the Chinese box office respectively and have combined for more than $31 million in tickets sold for Imax screenings.

With the overseas markets still humming, Imax is still looking for that first big Hollywood hit on their U.S. screens. That may come later this month with Amazon MGM’s sci-fi adventure “Project Hail Mary,” which is tracking for a $50 million-plus opening weekend and has gotten very strong social media buzz from early screenings.

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