After three weeks atop the box office, Finding Dory has finally ceded its crown – to another animated movie. These collections are the first three-day debut, and this film is the sixth biggest opening in the animated films of all time in the United States theatres. But, as it turns out, “Pets” fared better and is even Illumination’s second-best performer during opening after “Minions”, which kicked off with $115.7 million a year ago. The $104 million debut is also noticeably above Disney’s Zootopia ($75 million) and Inside Out ($90 million), so we should expect for The Secret Life of Pets to produce a similar giant sized box office. The launch of the latest Illumination animated movie is only slightly behind their previous offering, Minions ($115.7 million), which as you all know went on to amass more than billion worldwide.
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Summer movies are in full swing at the box office. All the same, WB has avoided another Pan, which is its own not-insignificant consolation.
The Secret Life of Pets faced comparatively weak competition for the weekend, with The Legend of Tarzan coming in at second place in the second week of its theatrical run with $21 million.
But families have again generated reliably robust movie ticket sales this year, propelling “Finding Dory” to box-office dominance three weekends in a row.
With worldwide totals added in, Finding Dory has grossed $642.8m globally to date.
Finding Dory is now running with the highest grossing film of 2016 in the United States with $422.5 million. It is expected to become the all-time highest-grossing animated film when it surpasses “Shrek 2’s” North American record.
“Pets” will post the sixth-best opening of 2016 following “Captain America: Civil War”, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”, “Finding Dory”, “Deadpool” and “The Jungle Book” – all members of the elite group of 39 titles that have opened with more than $100 million domestically.
The movie starring Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza was made for $33 million before marketing costs. Still, this is a solid opening for Mike and Dave, since the $33 million wasn’t projected to do almost this well in initial estimates prior to release.
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Fifth with $12.4 million was The Purge: Election Year, a dystopian thriller in which the government has sanctioned an annual night of lawlessness, violence and murder. “It’s nearly the end of summer, and there’s a lot of ground to make up, but one movie can make all the difference”.
