It’s already inevitable — DreamWorks Animation’s legacy sequel Kung Fu Panda 4 will carry the animated family franchise to $2 billion and beyond at the worldwide box office. The film opened with almost $59 million domestic, the second-biggest debut for the Kung Fu Panda series, even as Dune: Part Two held strong with $46 million in North America and a great 56% hold.
Kung Fu Panda 4 will have an estimated $95 million in global receipts through close of business Tuesday, give or take a couple of million dollars. If it overperforms, then it has a shot at $100 million, or might shed the weekend’s most enthusiastic turnout and suffer larger international drop-offs to finish today closer to $90 million.
Keep in mind, Kung Fu Panda 4 has only opened in a relatively small number of international markets so far. It hits major regions in coming weeks, including most of Western Europe, much of Latin America, China, the rest of North America, and the rest of Asia-Pacific. Which means the big opening we saw is just a preview of what’s to come when the film rolls out through the rest of March and first half of April.
As of close of business Tuesday, the Kung Fu Panda franchise sits at approximately $1.82 billion in total box office gross. Since the latest sequel had the second-highest domestic opening of the franchise, and compared against the other installments, even a pessimistic prediction would see Kung Fu Panda 4 topping $300 million (surely an impossibly low figure) by the end of its run, enough to put it well over $2 billion.
