Cowabunga! TMNT: Mutant Mayhem Has Passed $100 Million At The Domestic Box Office
Audiences have spoken, and they are continuing to speak in favor of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem." The latest adaptation of the comic book heroes created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird has been slowly but surely piling up cash at the box office since its release at the beginning of this month. Now, the film has crossed a major milestone, eclipsing the $100 million mark domestically.
With $730,000 added to its growing total on Tuesday, director Jeff Rowe's animated crowd-pleaser has now taken in $100.57 million in North America, per The Numbers. As far as the overseas take goes, the movie has earned $37 million to date, bringing its grand total to $137.57 million. While that might not be a gigantic sum compared to something like "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" ($1.35 billion), the latest "TMNT" film was produced for a shockingly reasonable $70 million budget. So it's already well on its way to turning a profit.
Benefiting greatly from strong word of mouth from both critics and audiences alike (read our review here), the animated flick has had really long legs at the box office even in the face of competition from the likes of "Barbie," "Blue Beetle," "Meg 2: The Trench," and, most recently, "Gran Turismo." Amazingly enough, it's actually the first animated movie to make at least $100 million in North America not released by Disney or Universal, save for the "Spider-Verse" films from Sony. As of this writing, "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" sits at $686.8 million worldwide, including $381.1 million domestically.
This movie has real turtle power
In more good news for Paramount Pictures, "Mutant Mayhem" still has a lot of room to run globally. It's yet to open in several key markets, including Brazil, Italy, India, Russia, Australia, and most important of all, Japan. It won't open in Japan until September 22, 2023, but that just means its total will continue to grow for at least another month or so, even if the movie starts running out of steam a bit in the U.S. Paramount has plenty of reason to be excited, particularly because the box office is truly just one smaller piece of the puzzle in this case.
The "Ninja Turtles" IP is extremely valuable and having a well-liked movie in theaters only helps to move more merchandise elsewhere. Case in point, the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" brand is set to generate more than $1 billion in global retail sales in 2023 alone. In short, a movie like "Mutant Mayhem" helps to sell more action figures and whatnot. That being the case, Paramount looks pretty smart for already having a sequel film, as well as a two-season animated series for Paramount+, in the works. With any luck, the next movie will break out like "Across the Spider-Verse" did, setting this iteration of the franchise up for long-term success.
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" is in theaters now.