The Boss Baby

The broad success of Netflix animated series like Voltron and Trollhunters will give way to a whole new power in 2018. Not only is a She-Ra reboot on deck for next year, but also new animated iterations of The Boss Baby, Captain Underpants and more.

So, get ready for the Baby Cinematic Universe, I guess. DreamWorks Animation has just announced that The Boss Baby sequel audiences have all been clamoring for will definitely be happening, definitely also star Alec Baldwin, and definitely come out on March 26, 2021, which is so far into the future that maybe we can all forget about it by then.

Turn off your proton packs and fire up your Fleetwood Mac, it’s time for the latest edition of the ScreenCrush Weekend Box Office Report! There were few surprises to be found at the top of the list this weekend, but with a few big films nearing the end of their theatrical run, it’s a good time to take stock and see how things shook out. Here’s the projected grosses as of Sunday afternoon:

In a week devoid of any major releases, we still saw some major changes at the box office, with familiar faces like Kong: Skull Island, Power Rangers, and Get Out (RIP) all falling from the Top 10 in favor of new releases or aggressively expanding art films. Of course, not everything was different; if you read these box office reports every weekend, I’ll bet you can name the top three movies (in order) with minimal effort. Here’s the weekend box office projections as of Sunday afternoon:

Audiences don’t turn their back on family. That’s the lesson to be learned from this past weekend, anyways, when The Fate of the Furious proved that this is one franchise showing no signs of slowing down. It was never a question of whether The Fate of the Furious would take the top spot this weekend, but even the most optimistic of projections couldn’t have expected the global domination that this movie undertook. Here’s the box office estimates as of Sunday afternoon:

Welcome to the calm before the storm. With a handful of blockbuster movies already released, and more on the way, the second weekend in April was a relatively quiet affair, with a few old favorites dominating the weekend yet again and a few new releases grabbing whatever box office they could before things get fast and furious at your local multiplex. Let’s take a look at the projected grosses through Sunday afternoon.

In a parallel universe where Paramount Pictures doesn’t alienate its fanbase, we might be talking about Ghost in the Shell as the big winner of this weekend and the de facto start of a new wave of Japanese Hollywood adaptations. Instead, DreamWorks Animation and The Boss Baby blew up the box office, no doubt delighting a handful of DreamWorks executives who watched the Ghost in the Shell controversy unfold with glasses of champagne in hand. After all, nobody’s going to boycott a movie about a baby who wears a suit.

Beck Bennett has a recurring character on Saturday Night Live named Mr. Patterson; he’s sometimes referred to as the “Baby Boss.” He has the body of a 30-year-old and the mannerisms of a 12-month-old. As the subject of an occasional sketch, it’s hilarious; Bennett nails an infant’s unsteady movements perfectly. I’m not sure I would ever want to see an entire movie about the Baby Boss, though, particularly after watching the entire movie of The Boss Baby, the new DreamWorks Animation feature that inverts Bennett’s schtick (instead of a businessman acting like a baby, here’s a baby acting like a businessman) but never really lands on a joke beyond “It sure is funny when a baby wears a suit! It thinks it’s people!”

The latest trailer for the upcoming DreamWorks film The Boss Baby — an animated comedy featuring Alec Baldwin voicing a baby who is, bear with me here, a boss — was specially cut together to be paired with Disney’s Beauty and the Beast remake, which premiered this past Friday. The video, jocularly titled “A Tale NOT As Old As Time” in reference to the line from the 1991 film’s theme music, features the Baldwin-voiced infant making Cogsworth and Lumiere play with one another as playthings before he directly accosts the audience. For a movie that would appear to be marketed to children, it sure does contain a joke about sticking a candlestick in there somewhere.

It’s not uncommon for stars to speak for a moment or two before a trailer for their upcoming film, hyping the release a touch while lending their celebrity directly to the proceedings. Especially for animated projects such as the upcoming The Boss Baby, it’s helpful to see the talent’s face as a reassurance of the film’s pedigree. But it almost looks like the Academy Award-nominated actor is trying to hold a straight face when he reads the words, “You are seconds away from seeing a sneak peek of Dreamwork’s new animated film The Boss Baby. I’m so excited for you. Really.” That little “really” tacked on to the end makes it sound like he’s got something to prove. Baldwin knows exactly what he’s gotten himself into. He knows how the phrase “The Boss Baby, starring Alec Baldwin” sounds.