It was a most excellent weekend at the box office as Finding Dory destroyed records (read our review here) with a fantastic $136.1 million opening. The Disney/PIXAR sequel now boasts the highest opening weekend gross for an animated movie leaving Shrek the Third‘s record of $121 million in the dust. It is also amazingly the 18th highest opening weekend of all time animated or not. The sky’s the limit with this one as a domestic finish of over $350 million and a worldwide gross of over $1 billion is certainly within reach. The folks behind Independence Day: Resurgence have got to be hoping that their way-too-late sequel boasts similar results this coming weekend.
This is another piece of incredible news for Disney which continues to pump out blockbuster after blockbuster this year with Zootopia ($1 billion worldwide), The Jungle Book ($922 million worldwide), Captain America: Civil War ($1.1 billion worldwide and counting), and now this. Take notes, kids. This is how you run a business!
Way, way down in second place is Warner Bros’ Central Intelligence which is another, more minor success story. The Kevin Hart/Dwayne Johnson buddy action comedy opened to a very good $34.5 million, further cementing the rock solid star power of both of these guys. This is the eighth Kevin Hart movie in a row to open above $20 million since Think Like a Man became a surprise hit in 2012. It is also worth noting that 5/8 of those films actually made it above $30 million.
Dwayne Johnson is on a similar winning streak with seven $20 million+ openings in a row. If I worked in Hollywood, I’d definitely work on teaming these two up again.
Elsewhere on the charts, The Conjuring 2 dropped 61.5% for a $15.5 million second weekend which is fairly standard for a horror film. It won’t come near the original’s $137 million but these things are cheap to make and it’s already very profitable so… who cares?
Now You See Me 2 continues to bomb as yours truly predicted with $9.6 million for a total gross of $41.3 million. I hope none of you wanted to see a third one.
Warcraft is fading fast with a 73% drop for a total gross of $37.7 million. It’s almost up to $4oo million worldwide mostly thanks to China, so I can’t imagine the people at Universal are shedding very many tears.
Okay, my children, the floor is yours! Are you surprised by the most excellent performances of Finding Dory and Central Intelligence? Any early predictions for Independence Day: Resurgence or Free State of Jones next week? Comment away!
Source: Box Office Mojo