Pixar’s Coco Sets All-Time Box Office Record In Mexico

How will Pixar’s latest film Coco do at the US box office this Thanksgiving? It’s already out somewhere else…what do the results tell us?

Coco won’t open in the US for another week, but it premiered in Mexico first — and they ate it up. One Wednesday the animated feature earned over 827 million pesos, or over $43 million. It now holds the record for the highest-grossing opening weekend of any film in that country, beating the previous record set by The Avengers in 2012.

This should come as a relief for Pixar’s parent company Disney, who has run into some controversies in the past co-opting cultures from other countries and turning them into animated films. To make sure Coco got everything right, co-directors Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3) and Adrian Molina (Monsters University) spent years traveling through Mexico and learning about their customs firsthand. There was a little controversy at the beginning of development when Disney attempted to trademark Dia De Las Muertos, the name of the Mexican holiday the movie revolves around.

Edward James Olmos, who has a role in the new film, said to iO9 that he considers Coco one of the highlights of his career. “People who see this movie are going to come out really moved, especially when you haven’t thought about your parents or you haven’t thought about your loved ones,” he said.

Coco opens in the US Thanksgiving weekend, November 22.