“Hoppers” is set to release this week, and the media has been on the offensive, posting reviews and boasting the biggest opening since “Coco” in 2017. Today Deadline stated that “Hoppers” would open to $88 million globally, with $36M-$38M being from the US market alone. This number is already lower than the original estimates of $40-$50 million domestic we saw previously.
Currently, the critical reviews are good at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Disney / Pixar was offering early screeners to try and get “word of mouth” going as well.
But the general public doesn’t seem all that aware of the film or interested.
Social media posts aren’t getting the engagement expected from a “big release” film.
Pixar’s post did perform better (20 hours later) but Walt Disney Animation also posted and got very little interest in two hours.
They did do a bit better on X
Just talking to people I know, they aren’t planning to go, or didn’t know what this film was. It is concerning.
However, the truth of the matter is, we won’t know how well this film performs until after the opening weekend. But the general public doesn’t seem all that engaged.
I want to be clear that this does not mean the movie is bad. It could be a fantastic film, but that doesn’t mean audiences are engaged.
If it doesn’t do well at opening, but the film is genuinely good, word of mouth could propel it along, as with “Elemental.”
The Goomba in the ointment
Even if the film is good, it may only have a little over three weeks to take in as much as it can before the “Super Mario Galaxy” film drops on April 1. Many people are excited about that upcoming film, and it will quickly suck all the wind out of “Hoppers” sails.
For “Hopper’s” to do well, it needs to knock it out of the park in the first couple of weeks of theatrical release.
Right now, the buzz isn’t really there for people. Some are interested, but a lot of people don’t even know what it is. The media is working overtime as a hype machine, but if people aren’t listening to them like they used to, I’m not sure it will be enough.
Hopefully, my concern is unfounded, and it’s a great film that does really well. But I didn’t think “Elio” was a terrible film, and it faced similar issues with audiences.
I will be reviewing this film later this week, giving my honest opinion on it.
Stay tuned.
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