Trolls World Tour Has Biggest Opening Weekend Ever for a Digital Title

The entertainment industry is currently in some pretty uncharted territory, now that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused people to stay away from the large gatherings. In addition to plenty of movies and TV shows being forced to shut down production, nearly all recent blockbusters have had to change their release strategy. Trolls World Tour did so in a slightly unexpected way, by releasing the film both in theaters and on Video on Demand platforms on the same day. Based on a recent announcement, it seems like that move paid off. On Monday, Universal announced (via The Hollywood Reporter) that Trolls World Tour scored the biggest digital opening of all time over the past weekend.

While the studio did not provide any numbers (something that is relatively normal for home entertainment releases), it confirmed that the film was the number one title across Amazon, Comcast, Apple, Vudu, Google/YouTube, DirecTV, and FandangoNOW. It also claimed that the film was ten times as successful as Universal’s previous highest-grossing digital debut, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

The decision to simultaneously make Trolls World Tour available theatrically and on digital was announced last month, with the film being available to rent on VOD for a 48-hour period for $19.99. The announcement came as Universal also moved all of its recent releases – The Invisible Man, The Hunt, and Emma – to VOD early, to incentivize people staying home during the pandemic. With essentially all of American movie theaters shut down in recent weeks (outside of a handful of drive-in theaters), the release still provided the opportunity for fans to go to the theater, or to stay home with their families and still experience the film. Many have worried that the move could set a dangerous precedent of future films shortening their theatrical window or doing away with it entirely, but it’s unclear if that will be the case in a post-pandemic world.

Trolls World Tour follows Poppy (Anna Kendrick) and Branch (Justin Timberlake) on an adventure that takes them well beyond what they’ve known before, discovering six different Troll tribes scattered over six different lands and devoted to six different kinds of music: Funk, Country, Techno, Classical, Pop and Rock. There’s hard rock royals Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom) and her dad King Thrash (Ozzy Osbourne) who want to destroy all other kinds of music to let rock reign supreme. With the fate of the world at stake, Poppy and Branch, along with their friends — Biggie (James Corden), Chenille (Caroline Hjelt), Satin (Aino Jawo), Cooper (Ron Funches) and Guy Diamond (Kunal Nayyar) — set out to visit all the other lands to unify the Trolls in harmony against Barb, who’s looking to upstage them all.

The film will also feature the voice talents of Mary J. Blige, George Clinton, Anderson Paak, Kelly Clarkson, Sam Rockwell, Flula Borg, J Balvin, Ester Dean, Anthony Ramos, Jamie Dornan, Gustavo Dudamel, Charlyne Yi, Kenan Thompson, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, and Griffin McElroy.

What do you think of Trolls World Tour‘s reported digital opening? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!