The World Fell In Love With Pixar's New Movie Coco

Disney Pixar’s ‘Coco’ premiered over the weekend delivering a great surprise. The movie had a great debut topping the weekend’s projections and nabbing great reviews.

While ‘Coco’ dominated the charts, ‘Justice League continues on a kind of lazy second week which followed a disappointing debut.

‘Coco’ dominating the charts and reviews

Disney Pixar’s latest adventure, ‘Coco,’ has marveled audiences topping the domestic box office and grossing over $49 million over the debut weekend.

The film is centered on the fascinating Mexican holiday Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). ‘Coco’ is not only taking the Us by storm, but has already set box office records in Mexico, where it has made $53.4 million in three weeks.

“In a world where moviegoing and quality seem to be connected, having a brand that has as consistently as Pixar has delivered on very high expectations definitely makes our work a little easier,” said Dave Hollis, distribution chief for the Walt Disney Co., which owns Pixar.

“Consumers have really come to expect high quality. This is once again Pixar doing what they do best.”

The film has also landed an A-plus CinemaScore from audiences, becoming Pixar’s sixth release to land this classification. Also, the film’s Rotten Tomatoes rating, 96 percent fresh, which is more than double that of ‘Justice League’ (41 percent).

Speaking of which, after much anticipation ‘Justice League’ got a disappointing debut last weekend. And this weekend, the film slid to second with $40.7 million. In the five-day holiday frame, it earned about $60 million.

However, the movie is doing better overseas, where it has made more than $300 million.

A number of specialty releases with Oscar ambitions also hit theaters over the weekend. Including ‘Call Me By Your Name’ which came out with the best per-screen average: $101,219 in four theaters. And ‘Darkest Hour,’ with Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill, debuted with $176,000 on four screens.

Taking seriously the cultural study

‘Coco’ was directed by Lee Unkrich and co-directed by Adrian Molina, and is one of the largest U.S. productions ever to feature a largely all-Latino cast.

After some early blunders, Disney tried to trademark “Dia de Los Muertos,” sparking a backlash, the studio strove to capture Mexican culture authentically in the movie. And how they did it, well, enlisting cultural consultants for their feedback.

“The future may lie in content like this, where you’re telling stories about real human beings and about diversity,” said Dergarabedian.

“The Hispanic audience is key to the success of any given box office year, given the frequency and passion for moviegoing.”