1. Despicable Me 4
Universal/Illumination | Week 2
$44.65M Domestic Weekend
$211.1 Domestic Cume | $437.8M Global Cume
Illumination’s Despicable Me 4 fought off franchise fatigue and series-low reviews to hold firm in its second frame with a $44.65M domestic take to stay at #1. The film added 21 screens for 4,449 total, a $10,036 Per Screen Average, and a domestic cume of $211,102,000 million. Here’s the 3-day breakdown…
- Friday – $13.69M
- Saturday – $17.49M
- Sunday – $13.47M
Here’s how it compared to the second weekend of previous entries in the franchise…
- Minions (2015) – $49.2M (-57% drop)
- Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) – $46.1M (-57% drop)
- Despicable Me 4 (2024) – $44.6M (-40% drop)
- Despicable Me 2 (2013) – $43.8M (-48% drop)
- Despicable Me 3 (2017) – $33.5M (-54% drop)
- Despicable Me (2010) – $32.8M (-42% drop)
While still behind the second frame takes of the two Minions movies, this is the lowest second-weekend drop of all six movies in the franchise. That’s an impressive hold, even though the big takeaway seems to be that “Minions” branded movies perform better than “Despicable” titles, hence Universal’s announcement this week that the next installment will be Minions 3. You can expect the new Despicable Me to pass the first ($252.7M) and third film ($264.6M) domestically by or shortly after next weekend. It is currently the 11th highest-grossing Illumination title domestically and will pass The Lorax by tomorrow to become #10.
The global gross pushed the Despicable Me/Minions franchise past the $5 billion mark with $5.087B at the global box office, making it the first animated franchise to hit that milestone. As of right now, it is also the 10th highest-grossing franchise of all time domestically ($1.8B), ahead of Transformers ($1.74B), Hunger Games ($1.61B), and Shrek ($1.60).
Overseas Despicable Me 4 also continued to dominate with an estimated $87,994,000 million international take, a drop of only 38% overall in 78 territories. This week’s new markets included UK/Ireland ($12.195M), Germany ($9.298M), France ($8.704M), and China. By far the biggest new territory was China, where the animated entry opened on 35,000 screens (11,000 locations), including 676 IMAX screens, finishing up with $17.7M for the second biggest Chinese launch of the franchise (behind Despicable Me 3) as well as the biggest Hollywood animation opening weekend since 2020. The biggest single market cume for this title is Mexico at $24.167M, while the global cume is $437,809,000 million.
2. Longlegs
Neon | NEW
$22.6M Domestic Opening Weekend
We came into this weekend with the horror genre hugely under-performing in 2024, with only 9.31% of the overall market share, and all of a sudden, boutique distributor Neon drops a huge sleeper with the serial killer film Longlegs, which astonished via an estimated $22.6M opening in 2,510 theaters for a PSA of $9,004 (only a grand off from Despicable Me 4). That’s above even our highest-end prediction from Tuesday and the biggest opening for a Nicolas Cage-starring film since 2009’s Knowing ($24.6M opening/$79.9M domestic), with much of the credit having to go to the film itself (production and P&A budgets under $10M) for generating word-of-mouth frenzy with an 87% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Here’s the 3-Day:
- Friday -$10M
- Saturday -$7.2M
- Sunday – $5.4M
This is enough to give Longlegs the biggest horror opening of the year and distributor Neon its biggest opening, but also the highest-grossing opening for an independent horror film of the last decade… and the only one to pass $20M. That’s above Woman in Black 2 ($15M), Child’s Play ($14M), and Hereditary ($13.5M).
Neon released the following quote to celebrate the performance:
“It has been an incredible, historic weekend for Longlegs, and it’s a testament to the wildly creative, exciting film Osgood Perkins and his fantastic group of collaborators created. We’re so happy audiences experienced the collective horror together inside a dark theater. We couldn’t be happier with the results, and we look forward to continuing our relationship with Osgood and his team of producers, all of whom have allowed us the freedom to build a campaign we believe in.”
Similar to A24’s The Witch, the only downside here is that Longlegs seems to be getting backlash from audiences with a “C+” CinemaScore and 66% audience score on RT. This is par for the course with the horror genre, especially for an R-rated film like this with strong violent and psychological content. We’ll see if Longlegs has legs next frame, by which time it will likely knock out 2017’s I, Tonya ($30M domestic) as the 2nd highest-grossing Neon release behind Parasite ($53.3M).
5. Fly Me to the Moon
Sony/Apple | NEW
$10M Domestic Opening Weekend
$19M Global Cume
The tired-and-true formula of storytelling and star power wasn’t enough for Sony’s Release of Apple’s big-budget romantic comedy/drama Fly Me to the Moon, which took in an estimated $10M domestically on 3,356 screens for a $2,980 PSA. It ended up placing at #5 on the weekend charts, behind the third frame of Paramount’s A Quiet Place: Day One at #4 (which quietly crossed the $100M mark domestically and overseas).
Here’s how the 3-Day looked for Fly Me to the Moon:
- Friday – $4.465M
- Saturday – $3.025M
- Sunday – $2.510M
The opening weekend fell short of expectations despite the star power of Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson. Middling reviews (67% on RT) may have put a lot of the audience off as well, with even the studio admitting that older adult audiences “historically don’t rush out to theaters opening weekend.”
On the plus side, Sony is reporting solid results in the country’s Mountain, West, and South Central regions, with an “A” CinemaScore for female/35+ audiences. Overall CinemaScore is “A-” with an 88% RT audience score, 4.5-star PostTrak rating, and 5-star PostTrak rating for female audience. While the film might continue to pull older and female audiences, the sex appeal and long-term date movie potential of Sony’s Anyone But You is just not there.
Internationally, Fly Me to the Moon took in an estimated $9M on 7,900+ screens in 52 markets, with Japan still debuting next week. This performance is on par with Sony’s 2022 mystery drama Where The Crawdads Sing starring Daisy Edgar-Jones.
Other Notable Performances
Twisters kicked off its overseas run with $11.5 million across 38 markets this weekend, including Australia, Mexico, and Brazil. The film expands to an additional 38 overseas markets coinciding with its domestic roll-out next weekend, including key territories France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK launch on July 17, followed by China on July 19.
Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 slid down to #3 on the charts with $20.8M in 3,815 locations but continues to shatter records. Having banked $1.35B globally ($572.6M domestic and $777.5M international), the sequel is now the #1 Pixar film globally and #2 domestically. Domestically and worldwide, it is the #3 animated film of all time and is set to pass #2, The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($575M/$1.362B) very shortly on both charts. We’re still two weeks from the film’s opening in Japan on August 1, which should be a massive earner since Japan was the #2 foreign territory ($32.8M) on the first Inside Out in 2015.
A24’s prison drama Sing Sing performed very well with its limited NY/LA opening in 4 theaters, where it took in a total of $137,119 dollars for a PSA of $34,280. This was aided by sold-out Q&As throughout the weekend featuring the likes of John Legend and Radha Blank, as well as reportedly the highest exit poll scores in A24’s history. Rather than expand immediately, the studio has chosen to keep the film in these four theaters exclusively throughout July to generate word of mouth, with an expansion planned for August. Meanwhile, A24’s horror hit Maxxxine pulled in $2,071,372 million in its second frame to become the highest-grossing entry in the Ti West/Mia Goth trilogy with a $11,776,432 domestic cume over X‘s $11,769,469 million
Walt Disney Pictures re-released their 1994 animated classic The Lion King into 1,330 theaters to take in $1,076,000 million for an $809 PSA. The film has earned $986,193,783 million over its three-decade release history. This revival is paving the way for Disney’s “live-action” prequel Mufasa: The Lion King, set to hit theaters on December 20.
Sunday’s Studio Weekend Estimates | Weekend 28 – 2024
Total Domestic Estimates: $127.5M | (-9% vs 2023)
| Title | Weekend Estimate | % Change | Locations | Location Change | PSA | Domestic Total | Week | Distributor |
| Despicable Me 4 | $44,650,000 | -40% | 4,449 | 21 | $10,036 | $211,102,000 | 2 | Universal |
| Longlegs | $22,600,000 | 2,510 | $9,004 | $22,600,000 | 1 | Neon | ||
| Inside Out 2 | $20,748,000 | -32% | 3,815 | 55 | $5,439 | $572,592,077 | 5 | Walt Disney |
| A Quiet Place: Day One | $11,800,033 | -43% | 3,378 | -310 | $3,493 | $116,229,000 | 3 | Paramount Pi… |
| Fly Me to the Moon | $10,000,000 | 3,356 | $2,980 | $10,000,000 | 1 | Sony Pictures | ||
| Bad Boys: Ride or Die | $4,400,000 | -34% | 2,200 | -444 | $2,000 | $184,876,000 | 6 | Sony Pictures |
| Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 | $2,440,000 | -54% | 2,587 | -747 | $943 | $27,028,000 | 3 | Warner Bros. |
| MaXXXine | $2,071,373 | -69% | 2,370 | -80 | $874 | $11,776,433 | 2 | A24 |
| Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot | $1,340,415 | -56% | 2,137 | -63 | $627 | $9,765,982 | 2 | Angel Studios |
| The Lion King | $1,076,000 | 1,330 | $809 | $1,076,000 | 1,570 | Walt Disney | ||
| Touch | $470,000 | 316 | $1,487 | $470,000 | 1 | Focus Features | ||
| Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes | $443,000 | -32% | 1,005 | 305 | $441 | $170,407,897 | 10 | 20th Century… |
| Thelma | $415,000 | -48% | 441 | -164 | $941 | $7,730,505 | 4 | Magnolia Pic… |
| The Bikeriders | $410,425 | -68% | 724 | -838 | $567 | $20,341,000 | 4 | Focus Features |
| Kinds of Kindness | $324,000 | -63% | 730 | -190 | $444 | $4,682,672 | 4 | Searchlight … |
| The Fall Guy | $321,000 | -63% | 111 | -120 | $2,892 | $92,765,000 | 11 | Universal |
| The Garfield Movie | $200,000 | -61% | 215 | -591 | $930 | $91,577,000 | 8 | Sony Pictures |
| Sing Sing | $137,119 | 4 | $34,280 | $137,119 | 1 | A24 | ||
| IF | $125,000 | -61% | 158 | -287 | $791 | $111,088,000 | 9 | Paramount Pi… |
| Dandelion | $65,538 | 446 | $147 | $65,538 | 1 | IFC Films | ||
| Robot Dreams | $49,000 | 60% | 300 | 262 | $163 | $700,516 | 7 | Neon |
| Janet Planet | $45,944 | -50% | 41 | -49 | $1,121 | $615,262 | 4 | A24 |
| National Anthem | $42,400 | 4 | $10,600 | $42,400 | 1 | LD Entertain… | ||
| Last Summer | $24,000 | 4% | 24 | 17 | $1,000 | $104,896 | 3 | Janus Films |
| Ghostlight | $20,552 | -53% | 46 | 2 | $447 | $634,808 | 5 | IFC Films |
Share this post