Trolls World Tour Reportedly Opened on Digital With Between $40-50 Million

The box office is essentially at a standstill at the moment, with nearly every theater in America shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, studios have had to get creative with their new and upcoming releases, by either pushing them on Video on Demand early or delaying their release into the months and years ahead. Universal recently attempted to have its cake and eat it too, by releasing Trolls World Tour in theaters and on VOD on the same day. As the studio hinted earlier this week, the strategy appeared to pay off, as Trolls World Tour was the #1 film on essentially-every VOD platform. While Universal did not provide any numbers at the time, "industry sources" have reportedly claimed that the film brought in between $40-$50 million.

According to Universal's earlier comments, Trolls World Tour was the number one title across Amazon, Comcast, Apple, Vudu, Google/YouTube, DirecTV, and FandangoNOW this past weekend. 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 the latest details surrounding Trolls World Tour's reported digital opening? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Source: Deadline