Weekend Estimates: ‘Secret Life of Pets’ Astounds With $103.1M Opening; ‘Finding Dory’ Becomes Highest Grosser of 2016; ‘Mike & Dave’ Ties the Knot w/ $16.6M

Universal’s The Secret Life of Pets exceeded almost all expectations with an estimated $103.17 million opening this weekend. The animated family film about pets who escape from their owners and starring the voices of Louis C.K., Kevin Hart, and Eric Stonestreet scored one of the highest opening weekends ever for an original concept film, excluding sequels and adaptations. Playing on 4,370 screens, the film also had the seventh-widest release of all time and the widest release of any film in the past four years, since The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.

Pets opened 14.0 percent above the $90.44 million opening of last year’s Inside Out, and is the highest-opening “original” film since Inside Out. Pets also opened 23.6 percent behind the $135.06 million opening of Finding Dory and 10.8 percent behind the $115.71 million opening of Illumination Entertainment’s previous release Minions last summer, though it’s impressive that Pets was able to come so close to both of those highly anticipated sequels.

Pets started with an estimated $38.33 million on Friday, declined a negligible 3.9 percent to $36.83 million on Saturday, and dropped a further 23.9 percent to $28.01 million on Sunday. This places its opening weekend to Friday ratio at an estimated 2.69 to 1. The audience was 64 percent female and crowds gave it an A- CinemaScore. With only one family-friendly animated film opening in the next five weeks — Ice Age: Collision Course two weeks from now — Pets should experience only mild declines in the month ahead and seems likely to end up as one of the highest-grossing films of the year.

Warner Bros.’ The Legend of Tarzan declined 46.5 percent to take second place with an estimated $20.61 million. The period action film held onto its runner-up position at the box office, although it’s close enough to third place that it could potentially drop a spot when weekend actuals come out on Monday. The movie has now earned $81.41 million through 10 days, which is more than some analysts expected, yet the film still seems certain not to recoup its $180 million production budget. It’s running only 4.9 percent ahead of the $77.57 10-day start of 1999’s animated Tarzan, the last major film featuring the character — although when adjusted for ticket price inflation the animated version is running about 60 percent ahead through the same point.

Disney’s Finding Dory dropped from first place, a position it had maintained the past three weekends, to third place — but in the process becomes the highest grossing movie of 2016. With an estimated $20.35 million this weekend, it reached $422.58 million total so far and zoomed past Disney’s follow release Captain America: Civil War, which has earned $406.24 million to date. (Civil War is still selling tickets but is clearly at the tail end of its theatrical run, unlikely to pass $410 million total.) Dory‘s 51.3 percent decline to $20.35 million was clearly impacted by the release of Pets, as Dory had dropped a smaller 46.0 and 42.7 percent the previous two weekends with no real animated competition. Dory is running 84.8 percent above the $228.54 million 24-day start of predecessor Finding Nemo, and is still running about 30 percent ahead after adjusting Nemo’s 2003 numbers for inflation.

Fox’s Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates opened in fourth place with an estimated $16.60 million. The R-rated comedy starring Anna Kendrick and Zac Efron was timed for the summer wedding season and attempted to follow in the footsteps of other successful R-rated wedding-themed comedies like Bridesmaids, The Wedding Ringer, and Wedding Crashers. However, it wasn’t quite able to match the more impressive openings of those movies, opening 19.6 percent behind the $20.64 million start of Ringer in January 2015, 36.7 percent behind the $26.24 million start of Bridesmaids in 2011, and 51.0 percent behind the $33.90 million start of Crashers in 2005. Mike and Dave started with an evil-sounding $6.66 million on Friday, declined 14.9 percent to $5.66 million on Saturday, and dropped another 24.5 percent to $4.27 million on Sunday. This places its opening weekend to Friday ratio at an estimated 2.49 to 1.

Universal’s horror sequel The Purge: Election Year took fifth place with a 62.9 percent drop to $11.70 million. Though it’s the highest percentage decline of any film in the top 10 this week, the number is in line with many horror films and is actually less than the 75.6 percent and 64.8 percent second-weekend declines of predecessors The Purge and The Purge: Anarchy, respectively. The third installment is now clearly performing better than its two predecessors, after opening similarly last weekend, with its $58.11 million through 10 days running 12.0 percent ahead of the $51.85 million 10-day take of Anarchy and 11.8 percent ahead of the $51.96 million 10-day take of the original Purge.

Warner Bros.’ Central Intelligence declined 35.1 percent to $8.12 million and sixth place, for $108.32 million total through 24 days. Fox’s Independence Day: Resurgence dropped 53.9 percent to $7.70 million and seventh place, for $91.49 million total through 17 days. It’s running 54.0 percent behind the $199.00 million 17-day start of the original Independence Day, even though that film came out all the way back in 1996. Steven Spielberg’s Disney release The BFG lost a tremendous 59.5 percent in its second weekend to take in $7.60 million and eighth place, for $38.73 million total. That represents a virtually unheard-of second weekend drop for a family film, and cements this as one of the lowest grossing movies of Spielberg’s career. This weekend also took a 45.3 percent bite out of Sony’s The Shallows, which made $4.80 million in ninth place and has earned $45.82 million through 17 days.

Rounding out the top 10 is a perhaps-surprising entry: the Hindi-language movie Sultan. The Yash Raj Films production starring Indian movie star Salman Khan had perfect timing with its story centered around both the athletic and personal life of a Indian wrestler training for the Olympics, which take place next month. The film opened in a paltry 283 theaters, about a tenth the reach of any other film in this weekend’s top 10, yet still managed to crack the top tier through positive word of mouth. Though largely unknown in the U.S., Khan has a huge international presence and is the 65th-most followed user worldwide on Twitter according to Twitter Counter.

The top 12 films this week made an estimated $206,001,000 total, which is 13.2 percent above the $181.97 million from last week and 0.8 percent behind the $207.79 million total from the same weekend last year.

Overseas Update:

Finding Dory may have lost its first-place perch domestically, but it remained king of the global box office with an estimated $29.7 million weekend, down 13.6 percent, in 40 markets. It has earned $220.2 million overseas and $642.8 million globally — without yet opening in some of the bigger markets including Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Germany. It has made $38.1 million in China, $30.1 million in Australia, $17.1 million in Brazil, $13.7 million in France, $13.2 million in Spain, and $12.7 million in Argentina.

Two weeks before its domestic release, Fox’s animated Ice Age: Collision Course made $32.1 million overseas, up 77.8 percent, in 25 markets. It has now earned $57.7 million total overseas, including $16.4 million in Mexico, $9.5 million in Germany, and $5.9 million in Australia.

Fox’s Independence Day: Resurgence captured $21.5 million overseas, down 44.9 percent, in 64 markets. It has earned $214.3 million overseas total and $305.7 million globally, led by $71.9 million in China, $15.9 million in the United Kingdom, and $13.2 million in Mexico.

Other notable overseas grosses this weekend include:

• Me Before You: $10.5 million, down 13.9 percent, in 51 markets — $103.0 million overseas / $157.8 million global
• Now You See Me 2: $10.1 million, down 54.5 percent, in 68 markets — $176.1 million overseas / $238.3 million global
• Central Intelligence: $9.8 million, down 30.9 percent, in 47 markets — $47.9 million overseas / $156.2 million global
• The Secret Life of Pets: $7.8 million, down 34.4 percent, in nine markets– $42.6 million overseas / $145.8 million global
• The Conjuring 2: $6.9 million, down 50.3 percent, in 62 markets — $192.6 million overseas / $291.9 million global
• Alice Through the Looking Glass: $5.5 million, up 1.8 percent, in 30 markets — $194.7 million overseas / $270.8 million global
• The BFG: $4.6 million, up 17.9 percent, in only four markets — $11.9 million overseas / $50.6 million global
• Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates: $3.6 million opening in 19 markets — $3.6 million overseas / $20.2 million global
• The Shallows: $2.3 million in 9 markets — $2.4 million overseas / $48.2 million global
• The Purge: Election Year: $2.0 million in 17 markets — $2.2 million overseas / $60.3 million global

Studio Weekend Estimates for Friday, July 8 – Sunday, July 10, 2016: