It was a hot holiday in the United States, and audiences cooled off at the cinemas.
Two new releases did well, while the rest of the top 3 movies at the box office held strong. The king of this year’s July 4th box office is a familiar contender, Illumination and Universal’s Despicable Me 4.
Despicable Me 4 racked in an estimated five-day opening of $120 million with a three-day weekend haul of $72.4 million. For comparison, that’s around the same 3-day posted by Despicable Me 3, but below the franchise’s peak with Despicable Me 2‘s five-day debut of $143 million.
This movie marks the fourth outing in the main franchise and the sixth in the series. The box office of this entry will continue the franchise’s reign as the top-grossing animated franchise of all time.
The other new release this weekend was MaXXXine, which, although it may have been a bit too niche for big Mega Minion-sized numbers, still fared well. It came in at number 4 for its opening, scaring up around $8 million and becoming the biggest opening in the Ti West-Mia Goth trilogy.
The rest of the box office top contenders saw Pixar and Disney’s Inside Out 2 finally fall to number 2 in its fourth weekend with an estimated three-day weekend gross of $31 million. The domestic gross has now hit around $535 million, the third-best showing ever for an animated film in the States. Paramount’s A Quiet Place: Day One held strong at number 3, while Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die rounds out the top 5.
For all the “cinema is dead” posts a few weeks back, it seems like some good films may be all that’s needed to keep things afloat?
