Yes, box office receipts is kind of a stinky way to talk about movies… but I’m a math person at heart and by training, and when I see numbers, I cannot help but to process them. So I think about The Peanuts Movie and the $129 million in domestic ticket sales it’s gotten so far, and I reflect on the fact that Peanuts was really not a big name brand in theatrical animation going in. Sure, there were movies over a third of a century ago, but even those saw very modest results. You know what is a name brand in modern animation. Pixar. Pixar is the name brand. Their new film was going to be the thing that shoved The Peanuts Movie out of people’s minds. And yet… that new film, The Good Dinosaur, has done only $115 million, and is unlikely to eclipse The Peanuts Movie. In the foreign market, Dinosaur has done a lot more than Peanuts ($129 million versus $77 million), but Peanuts is catching up, having taken in (in the territories thus far reported, some have not yet been reported) $16.7 million this weekend to Dinosaur‘s $9.5 million. All in all, Dinosaur may take in a wee bit more worldwide… but given that it cost twice as much to make, it’s clear that Peanuts was at least playing in big-league terms here.

Meanwhile, if you want a copy of the movie for your own home, you can now preorder it on DVD, on Blu-ray, and on 3D Blu-ray for release in the spring. That 3D one is listed as a Collectors’ Edition, so it seems likely (although no guarantee from me) that it will come with a 2D format and digital access. I can’t find any word yet on what the special features will be.

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