Wall-E Cleans Up Planet Earth

I was not able to go see Pixar’s new film Wall-E (directed by Andrew Stanton) last weekend, but from the looks of things I’m just about the only person who didn't. For those who are interested--whether you’ve seen it yet or not--I thought I’d throw up some box office information and a few links to reviews.

Pixar, it seems, has done it yet again, essentially maintaining the best batting average for any studio since the inception of the Hollywood system in the 1910s. Among other smashed records, every single one of Pixar’s nine features has opened at number one (scroll down to Wall-E: Pixar Goes Nine for Nine) for their respective weekends, no small feat. This time around, Pixar’s little robot who could brought home at least $62.5 million on 3,992 screens (that figure is from Variety; Box Office Mojo gives it $63.1 million). This opening compares with previous Pixar releases thus (with the worldwide gross thrown in, where Stanton's previous film Finding Nemo tops the chart):

Title Opening weekend Worldwide gross Date
The Incredibles $70.5 million $631.4 million 2004
Finding Nemo $70.2 million $864.6 million 2003
Wall-E $63.1 million 2008
Monsters, Inc. $62.5 million $525.4 million 2001
Cars $60.1 million $462 million 2006
Toy Story 2 $57.4 million $485 million 1999
Ratatouille $47 million $621.4 million 2007
A Bug’s Life $33.3 million $363.4 million 1998
Toy Story $29.1 million $362 million 1995


To hear from some people who did actually see the film, here’s a smattering of reviews:

Todd McCarthy in Variety

A. O. Scott in The New York Times

Kenneth Turan in The Los Angeles Times

Tom O’Neil’s in another LA Times blog (about the connection to Chaplin and Keaton)

David Edelstein’s in New York Magazine

I could go on, but as usual Rotten Tomatoes has a plethora of reviews on Wall-E’s page, some worth more than others but a wonderful resource across the board whether you’ve seen the film or not. From all accounts, though, you should.