NEW YORK — Francis Ford Coppola's decadesin-the-making, self-financed epic "Megalopolis" flopped with moviegoers, while the acclaimed DreamWorks Animation family film "Wild Robot" soared to No. 1 at the weekend box office. "Wild Robot," Chris Sanders' adaptation of Peter Brown's bestseller, outperformed expectations to launch with $35 million in ticket sales in U.
S. and Canada theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday. "Wild Robot" was poised to do well after critics raved about the story of a shipwrecked robot who raises an orphan gosling.
Audiences agreed, giving the film an A CinemaScore. "Wild Robot" is likely set up a long and lucrative run for the Universal Pictures release. "Megalopolis," Coppola's vision of a Roman epic set in modern-day New York, was never expected to perform close to that level.
But the film's $4 million debut was still sobering for a movie that Coppola bankrolled himself for $120 million. Following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, critics have been mixed on Coppola's first film in 13 years. Audiences gave in a D+ CinemaScore.
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By any financial measure, "Megalopolis" was a mega-flop. But from the start, the 85-year old Coppola maintained money wasn't his concern. Coppola fashioned the film, which he first began developing in the late 1970s, as a grand personal statement about human possibility.
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