EXCLUSIVE: In a recent Samba TV measurement, 783K U.S. households tuned into Universal’s The Boss Baby: Family Business on the studio’s streaming service Peacock over the four-day July 4th holiday weekend.
That number for the DreamWorks Animation title beats the four-day Memorial Day debut of Disney’s live-action pic Cruella on Disney+ Premier, which clocked 686K U.S. households that shelled out $29.99 to see that title (Cruella also posted a $26.5M four-day opening in theaters). Note that Boss Baby 2 was available to Peacock’s higher-paying subscribers; available to watch on its $4.99- and $9.99-a-month tiers (so, slightly different pay dynamics there). At the end of Q1 2021, Peacock counted 42M paid and ad-supported subscribers.
Boss Baby 2 repped a first for Universal and Peacock, making the DWA sequel available in theaters and on the streaming service in a day-and-date strategy. Uni shelled out on advertising to push Boss Baby 2, promoting the film through its Symphony program which markets the movie throughout the entire Comcast NBCUni conglom’s tentacles including theme parks, TV networks and Xfinity cable service. As such, the pic saw a respectable 4-day start of $19.65M in a box office weekend where Uni owned the top 3 weekend spots with F9 at No. 1 (second weekend of $29.1M), Boss Baby 2 in 2nd, and Blumhouse’s The Forever Purge in 3rd ($15.76M); the first time a major studio has done so since Sony in February 2005.
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Samba TV also reports on Boss Baby 2, that Peacock’s audience skewed lower-income, 0-9 years old (+20%), Black (+31%), and Hispanic (+29%). Of the top 25 largest DMA’s, Denver over-indexed the most (+122%), followed by Sacramento (+99%) and Detroit (+85%). SambaTV measures those who tune in for at least 5 minutes in 3M U.S. households. During the pandemic, when theaters were closed except for a few drive-ins, Universal released the DWA sequel Trolls World Tour on PVOD and earned a reported $100M.
Next to other notable family movies that hit streaming during the pandemic, Boss Baby 2′s weekend trails that of Disney+/Pixar’s Soul (2.4M 3-day, sans theatrical day-and-date), Warner Bros./HBO Max’s Tom & Jerry (1.2M 3-day with theatrical day-and-date, opening B.O. $14.1M, final B.O. $46M), and Disney+ Premier’s Mulan (1.12M 4-day sans theatrical day-and-date). Samba TV did not monitor viewership for Disney+/Pixar’s Luca which was strictly available on the streaming service and Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon which was available in theaters and on Disney+ Premier for $29.99.
This Friday, Disney will release its first Marvel movie Black Widow in over 4,100 theaters and on Disney+ Premier for $29.99. The movie is expected to open to $80M-$90M domestic, $140M WW.