It's the year of gigantic animated movies, I guess. Somewhat surprisingly, Universal's The Secret Life of Pets (or as I like to call it, Rehash: The Movie, via Toy Story meets Finding Nemo crossed with Homeward Bound), far exceeded expectations with a $103 million debut, actually making it the biggest opening weekend ever for an original animated film. Finding Dory just set the record for animation overall in June with $135 million, but that was a sequel. Maybe talking animals are just really in this year. In second place was Legend of Tarzan, which again blew past expectations by dropping just 46% since last week, bringing in another $20 million for an $81 million total. That movie will easily blow past $100 million, a number it wasn't expected to get anywhere near before opening last weekend. And yet it's not exactly a hit either, due to its massively overblown budget. It's a shame it's not good, since there's clearly still an audience out there for the century old Tarzan property.
Finding Dory sank to third with around $20 million, as it passes Captain America for biggest movie of the year with $422 million and will soon pass Shrek 2, for the biggest animated film of all time, domestically. The Zac Efron comedy Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates came in fourth with $16 million, and could hold on like many comedies do in the summer months, while The Purge: Election Year rounded out the top five with $11 million, falling down to earth by about 61%, like most horror movies do.
Top 5:
- The Secret Life of Pets- $103.2 million
- The Legend of Tarzan- $20.6 million
- Finding Dory- $20.3 million
- Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates- $16.6 million
- The Purge: Election Year- $11.7 million
In totals news, Central Intelligence has now made about $108 million, continuing Kevin Hart's unstoppable box office reign (and I still haven't seen a single movie off his), while The Shallows crosses $45 million (really not that bad for a movie whose only attraction was Blake Lively and a fake shark), and The Conjuring 2 closes in on $100 million, surprisingly not as successful as its predecessor. Next week it's the much maligned (ahead of anyone having seen it) female version of Ghostbusters, so we get to see how real this loud, online haters group actually is. Will Melissa McCarthy's fans show up to make this movie a hit as usual, no matter how it's received critically? We'll see.
