Box Office: ‘Pets’ Rule; ‘Mike and Dave’ Score

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It was another busy weekend at movie theaters as Universal Pictures’ The Secret Life of Pets scored a record-breaking opening tally, while Fox’s Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates scored a solid opening gross, as well.

The Secret Life of Pets managed to secure the record for highest opening weekend gross for an original animated feature with $103.1 million, easily topping the $90 million opening of Disney-Pixar’s Inside Out (the previous record-holder).  This unprecedented performance outgrossed both Despicable Me films’ opening weekends, and came close to matching Minions.  Now Universal has another instant-franchise on its hands.  Pets opened in a record number of theaters for an animated film and also scored an ‘A-‘ Cinemascore.  The film has earned another $42m internationally for a fantastic early total of $145.7m against a $75m budget.

Remaining in its second place position from last week, The Legend of Tarzan is holding up well, dropping only 46%, which is quite admirable coming off a holiday opening weekend, and earned $20.6 million over its second weekend.  The film has banked a sturdy $81.4 million domestically.  While this film heading to a $120m+ finish should be a win for Warner Bros., especially compared to some abysmal expectations prior to release, the flick cost $180m to produce.  It remains to be seen if international grosses can save it and possibly make a viable franchise here.  For now, the film sits at $135.4m worldwide, and audiences seem to be largely enjoying it.  Check out GeekFeed’s review from Thomas Lynch here.

Dropping to third place, Finding Dory continued its impressive run while taking its largest weekend-to-weekend tumble thus far due to the over-performance of Secret Life of Pets.  The animated blockbuster dropped 51% and swam away with $20.3 million in its third weekend, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2016-to-date with an impressive domestic total of $422.5 million.  Dory and Tarzan may end up swapping rankings this weekend when final numbers are announced tomorrow evening.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates managed a decent opening weekend of $16.6 million.  The raunchy R-rated comedy starring Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, and Adam DeVine opened right in the middle of expectations and earned an okay ‘B’ Cinemascore from audiences, suggesting word-of-mouth could be mixed.  For Zac Efron, who has struggled at the box office in the last few years outside of Neighbors, this is a big win.  The film should easily earn back its $33 million budget and is headed for at least $40m domestic.  The comedy already has $20m in total worldwide.

The Purge: Election Year dropped to fifth place, taking a 63% plunge from last weekend and earning an additional $11.7 million for a $58.1m total thus far.  This is the best second-weekend hold yet for the franchise.  The horror sequel is currently pacing 12% ahead of The Purge: Anarchy, and could end up with $80m domestically.

In sixth place, Central Intelligence continues to score with audiences.  The Dwayne Johnson-Kevin Hart action-comedy nabbed another $8.1 million this weekend for a $108.3m total that will only continue to climb in the next few weeks.  The winning duo already has lined up a reunion in Sony’s Jumanji reboot, and will likely joins forces for a sequel to their current summer hit.

Meanwhile, Independence Day: Resurgence continues to fade, dropping another 54% with $7.7 million this weekend for $91.5m total.  The box office performance for this stinker remains sad news for Fox and the fans.  So far, the disaster sequel has earned $305.7m worldwide.

The news also wasn’t so good for Disney’s box office whiff The BFG.  The big-budget Steven Spielberg-directed feature will likely end up as the largest flop of his career.  Dropping down to 8th place after a 4th place opening and losing nearly 60% of its ticket buyers this weekend, the film earned a paltry $7.6 million in its second frame for a running total of $38.7 million against a budget of $140m.  So far, the family-film has earned $50m worldwide.

In ninth place, The Shallows held well, dipping 45% for a gross of $4.8 million in its third weekend.  The shark-thriller has earned an impressive $45.8m.

The Bollywood feature Sultan opened in limited release this weekend to $2.2 million for a $3.2m total since its Wednesday opening.  This is the second-largest opening weekend for distributor Yash Raj after Dhoom 3 from 2013.

Finally, The Conjuring 2 dropped out of the top ten, earning another $1.7 million for a $99.37m total.  The horror hit should cross $100 million by the end of business on Tuesday.

Next weekend sees only one new wide release — the controversial (among die-hard fans) Ghostbusters remake which is already getting good marks from critics, and is also shaping up for a healthy opening weekend.

Images: Universal, Fox

Sources: Box Office Mojo, Cinemascore