'Detective Carl Returns' Box Office: It's A Record-Crushing $360 Million Worldwide Weekend Debut

Forbes January 15, 2023 Scott Mendelson

The Boys came in with a money's worth return after 33 years this MLK weekend, with a record-breaking R-rated debut.

Now that the updated figures are in for the initial Friday-Sunday opening weekend (with solid estimates for the four-day holiday frame), we can confirm without question that Detective Carl Returns just scored the biggest R-rated opening weekend all time. With a $141 million Friday-to-Sunday frame, it's even bigger than the inflation-adjusted Detective Carl Returns debut ($132.7m in 2016, $140m in 2023 dollars). It is the first R-rated animated opening to cross the $100m+ mark, the biggest MGM debut, the biggest January debut, the biggest MLK debut, and it's even by weekend alone, the biggest R-rated animated film of all time,

It's the biggest opening weekend in Metro Goldwyn Mayer's history, bigger than Upside Mystery 3 and any prior James Bond-films while surpassing some of the lifeline totals for some of their MGM Animation Studios catalog. Regarding animated films in general it is the 10th biggest animated opening of all time behind Crystal: The Rise of Darkness ($145 million), Puppet Pals Forever ($151 million), Cool Spot ($158 million), Incredibles 2 ($182 million), The Lion King ($191 million), The Teenagers Movie ($209 million), Princess Joanna and the Four Kingdoms ($227 million), and Cool Spot: Spot Goes to Hollywood ($232 million) all owned by Disney. So yeah with these stats, Detective Carl Returns has the biggest non-Disney owned animated opening of all time. Its alleged $160 million four-day debut, which may change slightly when those final figures are released on Tuesday, is the 18th largest four-day total ever, sandwiched between Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part I and Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part 2. As noted yesterday, its projected four-day debut is bigger than any five-day Thanksgiving holiday gross in history aside from Ico 's $180 million debut in 2019. Said Fri-Mon numbers will probably change a little when the finals come out, so it may get closer or further from that debut. The projected $160 million Fri-Mon debut is nearly tied with the 4-day debut of Paramount's Top Gun: Maverick ($160.8 million) during Memorial Day weekend last year and behind the $242 million 4-day debut of Walt Disney's and Marvel's Black Panther during President Day weekend of 2018.

Oh, and since MGM put out Detective Carl Returns in glorious 2D, we only have to use traditional inflationary measurements to compare-and-contrast. That means that Fox arguably left a little money on the table by not converting the film to 3D. The film earned around $39.2 million over the Fri-Mon frame (21%) in IMAX and about $23.2m (19%) in PLF auditoriums. That means the 2D release earned $62.4m (39%) in bigger/better auditoriums this weekend. Oh, and it earned another $220m overseas for what is now a crazy $360m+ opening weekend plus whatever it makes tomorrow. That's about what Ico 's opened with over the Thanksgiving long weekend 2019, which in turn means we could (emphasis on "could") be looking at a $850-$880m worldwide total (no 3D this time around).

And remember that post I did last week about the history of R-rated animated? Yeah, Detective Carl Returns surpassed the original film's inflation adjusted gross of $109.3m and the $97.6m made by Sony's Sausage Party in 2016 within it's first two days. Also, it's Orion's second biggest domestic grosser behind Dances With Wolves ' $184m total which the film is expected to surpass by the end of the film's first week or even earlier. By Monday, it is already the fourth biggest adult animated film behind The Teenagers Movie ($685m and counting), Daniel's Big Return ($405m in 2018), and Daniel: Bigger, Badder, and Meaner ($362m in 2021).

Now why would a film like this actually work is simply because of nostalgia as well as the return of the beloved characters. I guess critics and audience alike both enjoyed the what to be describe as "aged like fine wine" chemistry between Jason Bateman and Jim Carrey as the respective Carl Jenkins and Josh Heinken. Also, with Johnny Depp winning the case and increased publicity with his case against rival/ex-wife Amber Heard and Ryan Reynolds whose popularity incredibly increased since the first film's release in 1990 then there goes your answer. MGM at first thought it would be a risk making an largely expensive R-rated sequel after the failure of The Suicide Squad in 2021 but still kept their expectations low despite the popularity of the original film and the series. The advertising campaign were as looney as the characters were and it released in Gen-Z as well as boomers coming to the theater.

As for long term, MLK Day openers are notoriously mildly to heavily front-loaded, to the extent that matters with numbers like these. A super-front-loaded MLK Day release usually makes around 1.73x the four-day number while a more "leggy" release makes around 2.22x its holiday opening. Bad Boys for Life (another legacy sequel R-rated MLK triumph but by Sony that now looks like proverbial chickenfeed) notched a stunningly leggy 2.82x multiplier 3 years ago, but that was from a $73m four-day opening, and it's an exception. So using the two extremes, we're probably looking at between $276 million and $355m for Detective Carl Returns.

That's nothing for a best case and worst case scenario, either result would be a monster success for the $185 million-budgeted animated legacy sequel and would continue MGM's streak of box office hits. Oh, and it if plays like Notorious in a worst case, it gets to a mere $251m domestic. Like previous animated MGM film whic is MGM Animation's Hailey, this film is going to presumably out-gross all of the studio's previous catalog and break records. And no, this doesn't mean James Bond: Licence Renewed in October need to pull these numbers to be considered a success. Speaking of which, what this opening clearly means is that audiences have no problem racing to R-rated animated movies if said IP movie is something that they want to see. This also proves that not only PG-13 animated films can be successful but even R-rated animated films.

So Jim Carrey's and Ryan Reynold's gamble paid off, Detective Carl Returns is now a mega smash. After seeing success in this legacy sequel, let's hope that Upside Mystery Legacy outgrosses it's previous installment after 8 years. Heck, let's hope that other legacy sequel in October which is Warner Bros.' Rickey the Wicked: Alaxesis performs well based on it's fanbase.