Pixar's Hoppers shows resilience with a modest second-weekend drop while Reminders of Him benefits from strong audience scores, amid industry legal sagas and awards buzz
The domestic weekend box office produced a tidy narrative: an original Pixar animated film showing stamina and a female-skewing romance based on a bestselling novel punching above its early expectations. Hoppers, the new animated entry from Pixar, looked poised to decline by roughly sophomore outing standards — around a 33 percent drop — after a Friday gross of $7.1 million that pointed to a second-weekend tally near $30 million. The film’s initial launch — a $46 million domestic opening and $88 million worldwide — marked the strongest start for a true Hollywood original animated title since Coco in 2017, buoyed by both critics and strong audience scores.
Simultaneously, the Colleen Hoover adaptation Reminders of Him topped Friday’s chart with $8 million, and early projections suggested a domestic debut in the $19 million to $20 million range. The movie’s Friday lead was expected to be short-lived as Hoppers reclaimed the top spot over the weekend, but the commercial result represented a meaningful win for studios producing BookTok-driven material. Audience enthusiasm and word-of-mouth appear to be offsetting some of the skepticism that has shadowed recent adaptations in this space.
Beyond the top two, the weekend was shaped by a mix of specialty debuts and franchise durability. A24’s Undertone was projected to enter the chart in the third spot with roughly $9 million, while legacy horror carried on: Scream 7 continued to perform as a holdover and set a franchise record by crossing $100 million domestically on its fifteenth day, eclipsing the 28-day mark set by Scream VI. Meanwhile, Sony Pictures Animation’s GOAT was expected to round out the top five, adding about $4.5 million and nudging its domestic total toward $90 million by Sunday. On the other end of the spectrum, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! continued to underperform after a low opening of $7.3 million, an outcome widely attributed to mixed critical and audience reception.
Reminders of Him has elicited a mixed but occasionally warm critical response: reviewers noted that while the adaptation leans on predictable melodramatic devices and some contrived plot turns, it often finds emotional footing through performances and atmosphere. The film, directed by Vanessa Caswill from a script co-written by Colleen Hoover and Lauren Levine, foregrounds the chemistry between Maika Monroe and Tyriq Withers. Critics praised Monroe’s haunted presence and Withers’s steady, protective portrayal, and highlighted the film’s visual palette — with Calgary standing in for Laramie, Wyoming — and an Americana soundtrack that helps anchor the story’s melancholic tone.
Reviewers singled out several elements that lift the material: sincere lead turns, evocative landscapes and restrained direction that avoids manipulative excess. At the same time, critics flagged familiar tropes — letters-as-voiceover, tidy reconciliations and music-video slow-motion moments — as distracting in places. The screenplay’s handling of Kenna’s past and her relationship to Scotty’s parents and daughter drew both sympathy and questions: some reports note she served several years in prison (accounts vary, reported as five to seven years), and the film asks viewers to accept certain coincidences to reach its emotional payoff.
The commercial performance of these titles sits inside a broader industry picture where legal controversies and awards-season momentum are shaping perceptions. The earlier adaptation It Ends With Us was caught up in a legal battle involving Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni; that dispute, including the Lively v Baldoni case moving toward trial in May, cast a long shadow over subsequent adaptations. Even so, studios are still finding commercial pathways: Warner Bros. executives Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy have received credit for greenlighting original and daring projects, and at the March 15 Oscars they will have two titles — Ryan Coogler’s Sinners and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another — among best-picture contenders. Meanwhile, Focus Features’ Hamnet was on track to cross $100 million globally the same day as the Oscars, having earned north of $73 million overseas, and Emerald fennell’s edgy wuthering heights adaptation recently surpassed $200 million worldwide after three weekends.
The coming weeks will clarify several trends: whether audience enthusiasm can sustain Reminders of Him beyond its opening, whether Hoppers continues to defy standard animated drop patterns, and how holdovers like Scream 7 manage longevity. Industry watchers will also be attentive to how legal disputes and critical narratives influence sales for adaptations of popular novels. For now, the weekend highlighted two realities — that a well-crafted animated original can still find family and adult viewers, and that even contrived, tearful romance can perform when audience scores align with accessible storytelling.