Only Shrek the Third ($122.5 million) debuted higher than Minions, while Toy Story 3 ($110 million) and Shrek 2 ($108 million) are the only two other animated to films to earn more than $100 million in North America on their opening weekend. After setting a record for the biggest opening day ever for an animated film with $46.2 million on Friday, Minions cooled just a bit, dropping 16% on Saturday.
Overseas the film is doing even better, scoring the biggest opening ever for an animated film in 25 different countries as Minions earned $124.3 million over the weekend to bring its foreign earnings to $280.5 million (Minions opened in a number of overseas markets last weekend), for an already impressive worldwide total of $395.7 million. Not a bad showing for a film that cost just $72 million to produce).
Women made up 59% of the opening weekend audience for Minions, and 32% of the ticket buyers were under 13, though it should be noted that film appealed to more than just families with 40% of the audience attending without a family member. Caucasians made up 45% of the audience followed by Hispanics at 34%. The good news for Minions is that audiences gave the film a solid “A” CinemaScore, which should more than make up for lackluster reviews (just 54% positive on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes).
Jurassic World continued its potent box office run as it finished #2 in its fifth weekend of release, dropping just 38% and adding $18.1 million to push its domestic total to $590.6 million. By this time next week Jurassic World will become only the fourth film to earn more than $600 million domestically, and it has a good shot at surpassing The Avengers $623 million total and become the highest domestic film ever (not adjusted for inflation) that wasn’t directed by James Cameron.
Pixar’s Inside Out, which took the box office crown last week, took an expected hit from Minions, but dropped just 42.5% as it earned $17.1 million and drove its domestic total to $283.6 million. Overseas where Inside Out has been rolled out slowly, the film earned $19.1 million to bring its worldwide total to $435.4 million. The next few weeks should tell whether Inside Out will be able to challenge Minions for animated supremacy in the summer of 2015. Both films should end up over $300 million in North America.
Paramount’s Terminator Genisys stabilized a bit, dropping just 49.3% from its disappointing opening weekend, earning $13.7 million and driving its domestic total to $68.7 million. So far the new Terminator film has done better overseas where it has earned 70% of its worldwide total of $224.8 million, but it still has a long way to go to break even.
There are no such problems for the micro-budgeted horror film The Gallows from Warner Bros., which cost less than $1 million to make (but quite a bit more to market). The Gallows earned an estimated $10 million, so it’s likely already in the black, which is a good thing since it received a very poor “C” CinemaScore, a rather frequent occurrence for horror films with tiny budgets, and not a good sign for the film’s box office prospects.
Magic Mike XXL dropped just 25% as it earned $9.6 million and brought its domestic total to $48.4 million. While this sequel won’t come close to its predecessor’s strong showing, the $14 million production is making money. The prognosis is not quite as good for Seth Mcfarlane’s Ted 2, which fell 50% in its third weekend as it earned $5.6 million to give it a domestic total of $71.6 million.
It is a good thing that Ryan Reynolds got to bask in Comic-Con’s ecstatic reaction to the Deadpool trailer he stars in, because Self/Less, the sci-fi thriller starring Reynolds debuted DOA in 8th place with just $5.4 million, a very poor showing indeed.
It should be noted that ninth place on the charts went to an Indian film, Baahubali: The Beginning, which earned $3.6 million from just 236 theaters thanks to a great per-venue average of $15,148, second only to that of Minions ($26,784). Baahubali: The Beginning is the first half of a two-part Indian epic film written and directed by S.S. Rajamouli, which has been praised for visual effects and is reportedly the most expensive Indian film ever made, costing over $40 million. The fact that it made the top ten testifies once again to the fact that the United States is becoming a more diverse (and interesting) country.
Be sure to check back here next week to see if Marvel’s diminutive Ant-Man can dislodge those Minions from the top spot and keep the summer of 2015 humming on all cylinders, and to find out how TV and media darling Amy Schumer fares as she brings her shtick to the big screen in Trainwreck.
