Pixar next movie, Coco, doesn't come out here for a couple of weeks, but the movie is already out in one country, and if that nation's box office is any indication, Coco is going to be big. Of course, the one nation where Coco has already been released has a particular connection to the material, as the movie takes place in Mexico, so it's not too surprising that the film is taking Mexican moviegoers by storm. The film has earned over $27 million in just over a week of release, but, remarkably, the film actually saw a box office increase during its second weekend.
In almost every case, the people most interested in seeing a movie show up on opening weekend. There isn't even a question of whether or not the box office totals will drop in the second weekend, the only real question is by how much. However, Coco, which opened in wide release in Mexico on October 27, actually saw a 12% jump in its second weekend according to Forbes. The movie had its world premiere in Mexico and opened just prior to the Mexican Day of the Dead, the holiday which the entire film is built around.
The film follows a boy named Miguel who loves music, though his family has a prohibition against it. Via magical means, Miguel finds himself in the land of the dead, where he meets members of his family who have passed on. They try to help him return to the land of the living, while he learns about his family's history. Since this is Pixar, we're already getting the box of tissues prepped.
While Mexico's total box office for Coco is going to be dwarfed when the film is released stateside on November 22, the numbers are still valuable when trying to gauge how the movie will do overall. It's not surprising that a lot of people would be attracted to a family movie that focuses on one of the nation's biggest holidays, but the fact that even more people went to see it during its second weekend would certainly appear to be a strong endorsement of the film as a whole. If there was some problem with the way the holiday or the people were portrayed, word of mouth would have likely caused a significant second-weekend drop. The fact that the opposite happened would indicate worth of mouth was so positive that it brought people out who might not have otherwise planned to see the film at all and/or it brought crowds back to see the movie a second time.
While the material of Coco surely won't resonate with every audience the way that it does in Mexico, the fact that the material is authentic enough for them shows that Pixar did their homework. To some extent that dedication will almost certainly show through, meaning you won't necessarily need to know a lot about the Day of the Dead to enjoy Coco.
