The upcoming Hugh Jackman movie The Sheep Detectives has received a concerning box office projection. Directed by Minions’ Kyle Balda and written by Craig Mazin, The Sheep Detectives is based on the 2005 international best-selling book “Three Bags Full” by Leonie Swann that follows an Irish herd of sheep who attempts to solve the murder of their beloved shepherd. (That’s why the original title for the film was “Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Movie” when it was picked up by Amazon MGM Studios in June 2024.)
Trailers for the upcoming comedy drama, which comes out on May 8 in the US, have shown off its blend of CGI and live-action, in a similar vein to the Babe and Paddington movies. However, despite its wholesome aesthetic and star-studded voice cast that includes Bryan Cranston, Patrick Stewart, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, it looks like The Sheep Detectives will have an uphill climb at the box office.
How much is The Sheep Detectives expected to make in its domestic opener?
The Sheep Detectives is predicted to earn $10 million to $20 million in its domestic opening weekend from May 8 to May 10 in the US and Canada.
This projection comes from BoxOffice Pro, which admits that its forecast is “on the low side” due to the book being relatively unknown and Amazon MGM Studios being fairly new to the scene (although we would hope that Project Hail Mary has put it squarely on the map at this point). The report compares this range to the domestic openers of similar films, including Clifford the Big Red Dog at $16.6 million and The Garfield Movie at $24 million.
A separate April 10 report from BoxOfficeTheory more or less agrees with this box office prediction, believing that The Sheep Detectives will earn $11 million, or somewhere in the range of $10 million to $16 million in its domestic opener. Over the course of its entire domestic theatrical run, the report projects the movie will rake in $47 million, or in the range of $36 million to $75 million.
These numbers are relatively low when considering what we know so far about the movie’s production budget. According to Forbes, the cost of The Sheep Detectives is at minimum $64.3 million, after a significant tax break from the UK government (its original cost was around $82.1 million before that). However, this is only based on figures from 2024. The report notes that this number is “set to surge in its next earnings release as it will cover the 2025 calendar year when the studio will do the bulk of the post-production work which is likely to include the creation of costly computer-animated creatures.”
While we don’t have an official number on the film’s full budget, 2024’s Paddington in Peru cost Sony $90 million, which gives us a rough estimate for a modern family-friendly film that mixes CGI and live-action. If we take the general rule that a film needs to earn 2.5 times its budget to be profitable, The Sheep Detectives will need to earn somewhere in the ballpark of $200 million to break even (at that’s a conservative number). So the film’s projected $47 million domestic total isn’t going to cut it.
That said, there’s still time for the film’s box office projections to improve over the next few weeks, and a good portion of its success will depend on its audience in the UK and the broader European market (the original book was written in German). The first official trailer for The Sheep Detectives that released in December 2025 has amassed over 20 million views on YouTube, with commenters praising its heartwarming and nostalgic feel. Screenwriter Craig Mazin is known for his work on The Last of Us and the source material was a bestseller in its own right, so the movie has a good shot at receiving positive reviews and word-of-mouth.
On the flipside, the film will need to contend with two other family-friendly titles that are coming out around the same time: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu on May 22 and Toy Story 5 on June 19.
