The box office outlook for the animated film Animal Farm is looking dismal. Releasing on May 1 in the United States, this adaptation of the famous 1945 novella by George Orwell would seem to have a lot of advantages, at least on paper. It’s directed by Andy Serkis, who is known for Venom: Let There Be Carnage and his work on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the voice cast features the likes of Seth Rogen, Glenn Close, Kieran Culkin, Steve Buscemi, and Woody Harrelson. And it follows the trend of animated films featuring talking animals. However, critics and audiences have not reacted well to the film turning the book into a kids movie, which has contributed to a worryingly low box office prediction for the Aniventure and Cinesite production.
How much is Animal Farm expected to earn in its domestic opener?
The 2026 animated film Animal Farm is predicted to earn $2.5 million, in the range of $1.5 million to $5 million, in its domestic opener from May 1 to May 3. It’s projected to rake in $6.25 million, or somewhere between $3.75 million and $15.3 million, over its entire domestic run in theatres.
This box office prediction comes from a late April report by analytics site BoxOfficeTheory, which has adjusted its projection for the movie downward. In a report made a week prior, it believed that the film would earn $8 million, in the range of $6 million to $15 million, over its domestic opening weekend. A separate forecast from BoxOffice Pro provides a more optimistic outlook for the movie, predicting in early April that it would get $5 million to $7 million in its domestic opener (at the time of writing, this projection has not changed since).
Still, these are relatively low numbers when compared to the box office performances of other films in the genre. Pixar’s Hoppers that released earlier this year had a domestic opening of $45 million, and GOAT from Sony Pictures Animation crossed the $27 million mark in its domestic opener. It’s looking like Animal Farm will have a similar trajectory as the 2016 video game adaptation Ratchet & Clank, which made $4.8 million in its domestic opener and $13 million worldwide.
Animal Farm has struggled throughout its production, with the film being announced in 2011 with director Rupert Wyatt before Serkis took over as director in 2012. Six years later in 2018, Netflix acquired the distribution rights for the film but later dropped the project in 2022 when Cinesite, Aniventure, and the Imaginarium Productions were brought on instead. The movie finally had its world premiere on June 9, 2025, at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France.
Reviews for this reimagining of Animal Farm have been brutal. As of April 29, it has a 26% critics rating based on 23 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and a “generally unfavorable” score of 33 on Metacritic. Many reviews were disappointed by the film’s family-friendly approach on Orwell’s book that critiques Stalin’s totalitarian regime, with The Hollywood Reporter’s Frank Scheck writing that “this version sacrifices the story’s powerful and social themes in favor of by-the-numbers plotting.” This echoes audience reactions to the film’s official trailer in December 2025 on YouTube that has received over 19,000 likes but more than 220,000 dislikes (by way of the Return YouTube Dislike Google Chrome extension).
The film faces plenty of competition too with its early May release, given the continued strength of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and the rising momentum of The Devil Wears Prada 2 that comes out on the same day as Animal Farm. Then releasing one week later on May 8, the CGI and live-action film The Sheep Detectives starring Hugh Jackman which offers another family-friendly option with talking animals.
