Yogi Bear movie with the title character (Dan Aykroyd) and his pal Boo-Boo (Justin Timberlake): Warner Bros.’ costly – and critically panned – kiddie flick is a domestic box office underperformer.- Yogi Bear movie box office: Warner Bros.’ live-action/computer-animated comedy has no chance of recovering its hefty budget in the domestic market.
Yogi Bear movie box office: Warners’ poorly received live-action/computer-animation mix underwhelms in the domestic market
Dec. 17–19 weekend box office (cont.): Trailing the Walt Disney Studios’ 3D sci-fi adventure TRON: Legacy, Warner Bros.’ critically lambasted Yogi Bear, a live-action/computer-animation mix and the weekend’s other major 3D movie, raked in $16.4 million from 3,515 North American (U.S. and Canada only) theaters according to final studio figures found at boxofficemojo.com.
Yogi Bear’s per-theater average was only $4,668 – an especially mediocre figure for an $80 million production (as always, not including marketing and distribution expenses) released in the ticket-price-inflating 3D format.
Silver Lining vs. Dark Reality
The silver lining: As a kiddie flick, Yogi Bear will likely pick up steam throughout the holiday season.
The dark reality: There isn’t enough box office steam to make Yogi Bear a profitable venture in the domestic market. (Update: Yogi Bear was down 52 percent [$7.9 million] on Christmas weekend and up 57 percent [$12.4 million] on New Year’s weekend.)
A tale about government profligacy, political corruption, environmental awareness, and picnic-basket misappropriation, Yogi Bear features the voices of Academy Award nominee Dan Aykroyd (Driving Miss Daisy, 1989) as the title character and Justin Timberlake as Boo-Boo, and the presence of Anna Faris, Tom Cavanagh, T.J. Miller, Nate Corddry, and Andrew Daly. Josh Robert Thompson provided the narration.
Eric Brevig directed.
International market provided solid help – but that wasn’t not enough
Update: Warner Bros.’ Yogi Bear movie ultimately collected $100.2 million domestically and $103.3 million internationally. Worldwide total: $203.5 million.
Without the international market, the live-action/computer-animated kiddie flick would have been a total disaster, but foreign moviegoers helped it to become just another box office money-loser.
Its top international markets were Australia ($14.7 million), the United Kingdom/Ireland ($14.6 million), Mexico ($10.5 million), Brazil ($6.5 million), Spain ($5.1 million), and Germany ($5 million).
”Yogi Bear Movie Box Office” endnotes
After going wide, the no. 4 movie on the Dec. 17–19 weekend box office chart was David O. Russell’s well-regarded boxing drama The Fighter, starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, and Melissa Leo.
As for screenwriter-director James L. Brooks’ How Do You Know, the mega-budget romantic comedy has turned out to be a complete box office disaster. Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd, and Jack Nicholson star.
Unless otherwise noted, “Yogi Bear Movie Box Office: Costly Live-Action/Computer-Animated Comedy Underperforms” box office information via Box Office Mojo. Budget info – which should be taken with a grain of salt – via BOM and/or other sources (e.g., the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Screen Daily, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Deadline.com, etc.).
Comments about Yogi Bear and other titles being hits/profitable or flops/money-losers at the box office (see paragraph below) are based on the available data about their production budget, additional marketing and distribution expenses (as a general rule of thumb, around 50 percent of the production cost), and worldwide gross (as a general rule of thumb when it comes to the Hollywood studios, around 50–55 percent of the domestic gross and 40 percent of the international gross goes to the distributing/producing companies).
Bear in mind that data regarding rebates, domestic/international sales/pre-sales, and other credits and/or contractual details that help to alleviate/split production costs and apportion revenues are oftentimes unavailable, and that reported international grosses may be incomplete (i.e., not every territory is fully – or even partially – accounted for).
Also bear in mind that ancillary revenues (domestic/global television rights, home video sales, streaming, merchandising, etc.) can represent anywhere between 40–70 percent of a movie’s total take. However, these revenues and their apportionment are only infrequently made public.
Yogi Bear and Boo Boo Yogi Bear movie image: Warner Bros.
“Yogi Bear Movie Box Office: Costly Live-Action/Computer-Animated Comedy Underperforms” last updated in October 2022.