Even if The Bobs Burgers Movie is a huge hit, there is almost no chance that the animated family sitcom’s theatrical debut will be able to match The Simpsons Movie's legendary box office numbers. While The Bobs Burgers Movie has already avoided The Simpsons Movie's biggest issue by being less intensely hyped than that long-awaited outing, the upcoming release still won’t be able to outdo Springfield’s first family at the box office. The historical box-office success of The Simpsons Movie would be tough for any animated movie to beat, and The Bobs Burgers Movie’s chances aren’t aided by inflation.
Released in 2007, The Simpsons Movie was a hit with audiences and critics. While some reviewers complained that the highly-hyped release was little more than a feature-length episode of The Simpsons, this was what fans wanted from the movie if the financial performance of The Simpsons Movie was any metric. The Simpsons Movie took home more than almost every traditionally animated movie in cinematic history, eclipsing even the impressive $80 million haul of 1999’s South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut.
Although The Bobs Burgers Movie may do well, The Simpsons Movie was an almost unprecedented box office success. Even within the highly competitive blockbuster environment of 2007 (which also saw the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Transformers, and Spider-Man 3), The Simpsons Movie took in $536 million and remains the second most successful traditionally animated movie behind only 1994's The Lion King. Thanks to inflation, The Bobs Burgers Movie would need to make $743 million to beat this—for a frame of reference, that’s more than The Batman, currently 2022’s biggest movie by a large margin. It would be almost impossible for The Bobs Burgers Movie to manage this feat for numerous reasons.
For one thing, The Bobs Burgers Movie will be competing with the likes of the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick when the movie is released in late May 2022. The Bobs Burgers Movie would always have been going head to head with the Tom Cruise blockbuster, since both frequently-delayed releases were originally intended to arrive in July 2020. However, while The Bobs Burgers Movie may not lose all of its audience to the action-packed adventure, there are further issues on the horizon for the release.
Unlike The Simpsons Movie, which arrived at the height of the summer blockbuster season in July 2007, The Bobs Burgers Movie will arrive in late May. While this is still a lucrative time for family movies, it doesn’t display the same level of confidence that the studio awarded The Simpsons Movie. This is not unreasonable, since in its Golden Age The Simpsons was a full-blown pop culture phenomenon whereas, even at the height of the show’s success, Bobs Burgers has always been a more modest hit. However, it does mean that The Bobs Burgers Movie will almost definitely not outdo The Simpsons Movie at the box office, even if the spinoff proves an unexpectedly huge hit.
