‘Sausage Party’ Launches With A Meaty $34.3 Million

By Amid Amidi | 08/14/2016 1:09 pm | 18 Comments

The trajectory of American theatrical animation just changed forever with a massively successful opening weekend for Sony’s Sausage Party, directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon.

Based on a story by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Jonah Hill, Sausage Party pulled in a $34.3 million, good for second place behind Suicide Squad and the best-ever launch for an animated release in August. And because the film was playing in 1,150 less theaters than Suicide Squad, Sausage Party claimed the highest per-theater average in the top 10 with $11,042.

The storyline you’re going to hear throughout the mainstream entertainment press today is that Sausage Party outperformed expectations and can be considered a major surprise. But why is it a surprise that a high-quality CG-animated film that offered something unique and different would be a hit with audiences?

Late-Thursday night, before even the Thursday preview numbers had been released, we posted the industry’s predictions along with our own:

SAUSAGE PARTY predictions:
Sony (internal): $11-16M@Variety: $15M@Deadline: $15-20M
BOGuru: $23M@BoxOffice: $30M
Cartoon Brew: $37M

— Cartoon Brew (@cartoonbrew) August 12, 2016

We added these notes:

There's no comps for an R-rated CG film so Hollywood is having trouble tracking SP—we think the industry is underestimating its audience.

— Cartoon Brew (@cartoonbrew) August 12, 2016

Sausage Party may not go as high as our prediction, but we still expect it to do very well

— Cartoon Brew (@cartoonbrew) August 12, 2016

In fact, the first time we suggested that Sausage Party could open in the $30-40 million range was late-July:

. @rcalcagno3 @BoxOffice We think Sausage Party is going to surprise the industry too. If forces aligns, could launch with $30-40M.

— Cartoon Brew (@cartoonbrew) July 28, 2016

And again, in early-August:

New tracking from @BoxOffice—Sausage Party revised up/Pete's Drag down/Kubo same…We're bullish on SP & think $30-40M pic.twitter.com/ynYsoPOWkk

— Cartoon Brew (@cartoonbrew) August 7, 2016

Not so surprising anymore.

Typically, I don’t much care for predicting box office returns, but in this case, it was important to make the point that the film industry routinely underestimates the demand for variety in animation. It was very obvious that Sausage Party had the makings of a hit, and yet the industry refused to believe it until filmgoers had to spell it out for them.

Whether you liked Sausage Party or not, recognize that it is a big step forward for the American animation industry. And in the short-term, brace yourself for a deluge of raunchy R-rated animated comedies because if Hollywood is good at anything, it’s repeating formulas rather than making projects that are unique and different like Sausage Party.