The Space Jam franchise returned with a vengeance this weekend, heavily overperforming to claim the #1 spot at the box office. Space Jam: A New Legacy raked in $31.7 million for #1 over the weekend, clocking well over the $20 million that analysts were expecting it to do. That number actually puts it ahead of the $27.5 million that the first film grossed in 1996 and is the fourth-best opening weekend of 2021 to date, putting the animated/live-action hybrid film well on the path to success. Coming into the weekend, box office predictors were pegging the film at a lower start due to a variety of entirely fair factors. It had been 25 years since the last film, after all, and the new film didn’t seem to be inspiring a lot of positive hype. That was born out by a low critical assessment, with aggregate scores at Rotten Tomatoes coming in at just 31% positive. Add in the fact that it was releasing day-and-date on HBO Max and this seemed like a film that families may well be sitting home to watch.