Weak opening box office for The LEGO NINJAGO Movie

After a swathe of mediocre reviews, The LEGO NINJAGO Movie has taken just $21,245,000 in its US opening weekend.

The LEGO NINJAGO Movie has had the weakest opening so far of a film in the LEGO series, earning $21,245,000 in its opening weekend in the USA. By comparison, The LEGO Movie took $69,050,279 and The LEGO Batman Movie took $53,003,468 during their US opening weekends.

Box Office Mojo notes that is well below expectations:

WB’s The LEGO Ninjago Movie entered the weekend with industry expectations targeting a $27-32 million opening. Mojo’s forecast was even more bullish, anticipating a $35 million debut for the third film in the expanding franchise. Unfortunately, the film only managed an estimated $21.2 million from 4,047 theaters, the lowest opening for the franchise by a wide margin. Earlier this year The LEGO Batman Movie also underperformed against expectations, though not by as wide a margin. Of course, as was mentioned in our weekend forecast, the Ninjago Movie targeted the smallest audience segment yet for the LEGO series, appealing mostly to young boys while the original LEGO Movie appealed to a much wider demographic and the LEGO Batman Movie even segmented that out a bit by comparison.

As well as the niche appeal of NINJAGO, with anyone who is not a child or a LEGO fan relatively unaware of the theme, it is the second feature from the series in a year which may have led to franchise fatigue.

Although this opening box office is below projections, animated features can have long runs at the cinema, so The LEGO NINJAGO Movie should not be completely counted out yet.

The LEGO NINJAGO Movie is out now in the USA and released on October 13 in the UK. Sets based on the movie are available from shop.LEGO.com.