With little int he way of kids fare these days, The Secret Life of Pets scored big once again this weekend with a $50 million take that brings its domestic cume up to $203 million so far, making it another solid entry for Universal and Illumination on top of other recent kids fare doing well. The film will slow down a bit by the next weekend and then bring in some good numbers throughout weekdays, but it won’t catch up to the big winner of the summer with Finding Dory. That film added another $11 million this weekend to bring it to $445 million, a move that earns it the title of the highest grossing animated film domestically.
The debut of Ghostbusters arrived amid months and months of controversy about its approach and casting and netted a $46 million weekend, which is decent and pretty much what they expected. Now they just have to wait and see how the weekdays go based on friends and family word of mouth whether it’ll sink it or drive it up with more interest. Amusingly, the film is still the best opening weekend for director Paul Feig as well as actress Melissa McCarthy. The film did not open much overseas with just three main territories for a $19 million opening and has a staggered roll out over the next month.
The Legend of Tarzan is working the slow but steady approach as in its third weekend it hit $11 million to bring it over $100 million.
Not doing so well from last week is Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, which landed just $7.5 million to bring its domestic up to $31 million.
Next weekend has a couple of big things with Star Trek Beyond arriving in 3,500 screens while Ice Age: Collision Course will hit 3,800 screens, though we’re feeling iffy on that project with it being the fifth film in the franchise. It’s doing well in its early overseas arrival with $127 million, but there’s a sense that the property is a bit more played out domestically. Lights Out also arrives to try and score some PG-13 horror fans. We also get a very limited release of Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie in just 250 screens.