The Pixar sequel Finding Dory led the box office for the third straight weekend, dwarfing The Legend of Tarzan and Steven Spielbergs Roald Dahl adaption The BFG, both big-budget debuts that had hoped to dominate the July 4th holiday.
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Variety, which has the box office figures, reports that Finding Dory took in $41.9 million over the weekend, bringing its new United States total to $372.2 million. Considering the film only cost $10 million to make and it is one of the few sequels this summer to do well its opening weekend, a fourth film in the franchise should be expected a couple years from now.
Tarzan came the closest to dethroning Dory with $US38.1 million with the BFG fourth with $US19.6 million.
The movie took $41.9 million over the weekend to secure the top spot and has grossed over $200 million in the USA alone in just three weeks. But Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow spent lavishly to update Edgar Rice Burroughs’ jungle king stories, shelling out a reported $180 million to produce the picture and millions more to market it. It could end up making $4 million for the four-day holiday weekend, which would be around $10 million more than analysts predicted, Variety said. It had strong competition from The Legend of Tarzan, which could hit 45 million once all those receipts are counted.
David Yates, who directed several Harry Potter installments, was behind the camera on the film, with Alexander Skarsgard donning Tarzan’s loincloth and Margot Robbie serving as his Jane.
The big-budget blockbuster features Mark Rylance as the giant and newcomer Ruby Barnhill.
Deadline reports that over the three days since its launch on Friday, BFG has brought in a grim $19.6 million.
“The magic of the Blumhouse model is that it allows us to be subversive and think outside the box when it comes to interesting audiences”, said Nick Carpou, Universal’s domestic distribution chief. “But we’ve got every reason to be hopeful for the midweek business ahead, every reason to be hopeful for a nice long run”.
In third place was sci-fi horror film The Purge: Election Year, which made $30.1m (£22.7m) in its opening weekend.
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In its second weekend of release, Fox’s “Independence Day: Resurgence” rounded out the top five, earning $16.5 million.
