MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU enjoyed a huge opening, taking in over $108.5 during the first three days of the holiday weekend. This is the second-highest debut for any movie in the DESPICABLE ME/MINIONS family, just missing the $116M earned by the debut of the original MINIONS on July 10, 2015. We take this as the clearest indication yet that families with young children have returned to the theatre en masse. RISE OF GRU will wind up as the most successful animated release since FROZEN II opened with $130M on November 22, 2019.
As always, fans of the little creatures liked what they saw, giving the movie a 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Given its warm reception and a calendar with a lot of playtime remaining in the summer, it seems highly likely that MINIONS 2 will go on to earn a 3X multiple of its opening weekend gross, which would put the final gross in the vicinity of $325M for its total theatrical run.
TOP GUN: MAVERICK, finished second on the weekend box office charts with $25.5, a drop of only 14% from last weekend. The undisputed superstar movie of the year has accumulated a 6-week total box office of $564M, which makes it the 12th highest domestic grossing picture in history. Given its gravity-defying ability to hold its grosses week to week, it now seems likely that it will still be in theatres through Labor Day weekend. Not many pictures are able to stay on screen through three national holidays, but this one is special.
ELVIS finished in third place with $19.0M a drop of 39% from its debut last weekend. We estimate that The King will hang in there over the weeks ahead and may wind up with $110M for its total run, which would surpass the $96M earned by the Elton John biopic ROCKETMAN which opened over Memorial Day weekend in 2019.
Last weekend we highlighted the opening of MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON in six select theatres, which earned a potent per-theatre average of $27K. This weekend, A24 expanded the distribution of its live-action/animated comedy to 22 locations and brought in $258K for a still-impressive per theatre average of $11,727. The expansion will continue in the following weeks, as A24 works on its buzz-building platform release strategy to attract a wider general audience.
