All Muppet films and ‘The Happytime Murders’ ranked by box office

“The Happytime Murders.”STX Entertainment

• “The Happytime Murders” has only taken in $20.6 million domestically. That’s less than any of the Muppet films that were released theatrically (counting inflation).
• The Jim Henson Company, which produced all the Muppet films, also produced “Happytime Murders.”
• We look back on the domestic performance of all the Muppet films.

 

“The Happytime Murders” had Melissa McCarthy starring, the son of Jim Henson at the helm, and a hilarious trailer — but none of that seemed to matter.

The really raunchy puppet movie was slaughtered by critics (it has a 22% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and has only earned $20.6 million in the US since its August 24 opening ($24.5 million worldwide).

The weak box-office coin makes it one of the lowest-earning wide releases of the 2018 summer. But that’s not all. It also didn’t make close to what any of the Muppet films that had a theatrical release took in domestically (even “Muppets Most Wanted”).

It’s a real black eye for the movie’s production company, The Jim Henson Company (“Happytime Murders” director Brian Henson, son of Jim, is its chairman), which decided to take a risk and make a puppet movie without its cash-cow Muppet characters, and paid the price.

“Great trailer, disappointing film,” Jeff Bock, senior box-office analyst at Exhibitor Relations, said to Business Insider summing up the movie’s performance. “‘Happytime Murders’ would have been better off mimicking the Muppets we know and love.”

Here’s a look at the box office performance (counting inflation) of all eight Muppet films that were released theatrically:

Note: All box office figures below are from Box Office Mojo.