It seems nothing can stop a Latin-accented orange tabby cat with the right pair of boots. The finale animated feature of Puss’s adventure titled Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) has been performing remarkably well since its release in theaters late last year. Per a report from Collider, the film has now grossed over $334 million worldwide at the box office. Upon reaching the $300 million threshold, it now stands as one of just three animated films that have reached that mark in the pandemic era, the other two being Illumination productions Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) and Sing 2 (2021).
Here in the west, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish stands at about $140 million in domestic box office sales, proving that Shrek’s former sidekick has earned an appeal to international audiences. It also clawed past Ferdinand (2017), one of Blue Sky’s most notable projects before the studio that gave us the Ice Age franchise permanently shuttered and merged with Disney in 2021. This past weekend alone, the Puss in Boots sequel earned another $14.3 million internationally.
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Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is the sequel to the original spin-off film Puss in Boots (2011), which gained traction as a follow-up project to the immensely popular Shrek 2 (2004) that first introduced the feline character. Helmed by Shrek director Chris Miller with Guillermo del Toro as executive producer, the film saw Antonio Banderas reprise his role as Puss, with Salma Hayek playing his new feline partner, Kitty Softpaws. The film performed very well in theaters and with critics, grossing over $500 million worldwide and still maintaining an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, proving the legitimate popularity of the character. The sequel Puss in Boots: The Last Wish so far is on track to potentially meet that same success and likely would have already, if not for the noticeable downturn in theater audience turnouts over the past few years. Nonetheless, the sequel holds an even higher 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, an impressive feat for any animated feature sequel.
The Post-Pandemic Era of Cinema Weighing Down on Animated Films
As with most genres of film in recent years, audiences have just not turned out in droves to watch animated movies the way they used to. While some may boil it down simply to what studios like Dreamworks, Disney Pixar, and Illumination have been churning out lately, that the mass appeal spark of old just hasn’t re-emerged in any of the latest projects released, it also is undeniably the psychological shift post-pandemic coupled with streaming’s well-timed, gradual takeover of the global audience.
Disney’s last major animated project, Strange World (2022), released towards the end of last year as an unavoidable box office failure, failing to even reach $100 million. The Puss in Boots sequel has effectively shadowed Disney and all of its recent animated releases, including Turning Red (2022) which performed far more dismally, and Lightyear (2022), which fared better but barely broke even at $226 million. Netflix has also provided some very healthy competition in the animated film genre, releasing popular original titles such as The Sea Beast (2022) and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022), which ironically outshined Disney’s live-action remake of the same classic story.
