So we’re gonna talk about both the normal 3-day weekend (slightly inflated because of the double Saturday thing) and the longer 4-day one.
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Appropriately, the top five for the Fourth of July weekend was rounded out by Independence Day: Resurgence, which earned $20.2 million for the four-day weekend. The animated sequel grossed $50.2 million from Friday to Monday, more than doubling the take of Disney’s new film “The BFG” (more on that later). It should also be noted that Nemo raised that money over two separate releases, the original summer 2003 one ($339.7 million) and a 3D re-release in September 2012 ($41.1 million).
Finding Dory, the House of Mouse’s other property, has continued to reign at the No 1 spot.
“The Legend of Tarzan”, starring Alexander Skarsgård as the man in the jungle, followed in second place with $ 45.6 million.
The animated juggernaut took in an estimated $49.9 million for the weekend and will most likely add an additional $12 million for Monday.
But “Tarzan” carries a massive $180 million budget, so the film will have to perform strongly in global markets to make a profit.
Warner Bros.is looking to overseas audiences to help “The Legend of Tarzan”. That may be dwarfed by the film’s $180 million production budget, but the studio has high hopes for it globally and at home, where good word of mouth is echoed by the movie’s A-minus grade from audience polling firm CinemaScore.
The unlikely Cinderella story of the weekend is Universal’s “The Purge: Election Year”, the most recent film in James DeMonaco’s “Purge” series, produced by Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes. Looking back, the first in the now Purge trilogy stopped at $64.5 million in the U.S. while the sequel ended up higher, $72 million.
Generally speaking, most movies don’t gross more than three times their production cost in the first weekend on release, but costing just $10 million that’s exactly what The Purge Election year has achieved.
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Some critics said the weekend’s figures marked a disappointing start for the BFG, which stars Mark Rylance. On a budget of $140 million, it seems unlikely that The BFG will be anything but a financial bust for Disney. I guess they sort of cashed in all their chips with everything else that was incredibly popular for them in 2016. Maybe Pete’s Dragon is next. “The BFG” earned $3.4 million in Australia and Russian Federation. Without the double Saturday thing this could have been way down there, I’m talking off by 65-70%. It’s worth noting that the four-day performance of “Tarzan” was pretty much in line with that of “Independence Day: Resurgence”, and the latter film, ironically, didn’t have the advantage of the Independence Day holiday.
