Despicable Me 3 Wins The Weekend While Baby Driver Speeds Over Expectations And The House Collapses

So even Despicable Me succumbed to the franchise fatigue striking a bunch of sequels this year....kind of. The $75 million bow of Despicable Me 3 is actually decent as far as computer animated sequels go and it's the first time a computer-animated movie has opened to over $60 million in two weeks shy of a year (the last entry in this subgenre to do that was fellow Illumination Entertainment title The Secret Life of Pets) and is just behind the $75.06 million bow of Zootopia for the eleventh biggest opening weekend ever for a computer animated movie. Considering this one was, like all Illumination movies, cheap to make too means Universal's basically printing money over here, though this one still provided a major step down from the two Despicable Me sequels.


Despicable Me 3 was down 37% from the opening weekend of Minions just two years ago and down 9% from the opening weekend of Despicable Me 2 (which burned off demand with a Wednesday launch). Why such harsh plunges? Well, the fact that Minions didn't stick around for long at the domestic box office (it did only 2.9 times its opening weekend compared to the 3.5-3.7 multiples typical computer animated family movies have) suggests there may have been more mixed reception from audiences on that one that may have diluted the Despicable Me brand. But a diluted brand is still good enough for a great $75 million bow, though, if it holds as well as Minions (which I don't think will happen only because of the 4th of July holiday), it'll make $218.5 million, by far the lowest domestic cume of any Despicable Me movie.

In second place was one of the first sleeper hits of the summer (following All Eyez On Me and 47 Meters Down), Baby Driver. The newest Edgar Wright movie debuted to a great $21 million over the three-day weekend and has grossed $30 million since its bow on Wednesday. After just five days, it's only $1.6 million away from surpassing Scott Pilgrim vs. The World to become Edgar Wright's biggest movie ever domestically. Between Split, Get Out and even 47 Meters Down, general audiences seem to be embracing original high-concept fare this year and Baby Driver is another example of that. Thanks to a strong Sony/TriStar marketing campaign, this one stood out from the summertime pack and it'll be fascinating to see where it goes from here. At the very least, it should be able to grab $70-75 million domestically.

Transformers: The Last Knight came in a third place this weekend, plummeting 62% in the process to gross another $17 million, bringing its domestic cume to a meek $102 million in twelve days. With Spider-Man and Apes and Dunkirk coming over the next three weeks, this won't be the last time this one has such a large weekend-to-weekend drop I reckon and it'll likely close its domestic run with only $130 million. By contrast, Wonder Woman is showing incredible box office strength dipping a mere 37% to gross $15.5 million for a current domestic total of $346 million. Looks like this one is headed for $400 million domestically, an incredible achievement for the daughter of Zeus. Meanwhile, Cars 3 plummeted in the face of Gru's new movie, plummeting 60% and grossing only $9.5 million for a current domestic cume of only $120 million. This box office misfire may struggle to hit $150 million domestically and there's no way it can beat out the $162 million domestic total of A Bug's Life at this point.

Premiering as immediately one of the biggest box office bombs of summer 2017 was The House, a movie some damn fool thought was gonna be one of the ten biggest movies of the summer at one point. Opening to just $9 million, it's Will Ferrell's worst ever wide release opening weekend ever as a leading man and the first time since Old School rocketed him to the A-list that one of his movies failed to open above $10 million. Really not much else to say here except, on a $40 million budget, it may have been a mistake for Warner Bros. to bet on.....THE HOUSE!!!

47 Meters Down continued to hold shockingly well thanks to a dire lack of horror fare in the marketplace. It eased down another 34% to gross an additional $4.6 million for a $32.5 million domestic total. The Beguiled, meanwhile, expanded into wide release by going into 674 theaters and grossed a great $3.2 million for a per-theater average of $4,836. This ones grossed $3.5 million in ten days and should end its domestic run in the $11-12 million vicinity. Continuing to fall was The Mummy, which fell 54% to gross another $2.7 million for a domestic total of only $74.5 million. Rounding out the top ten was Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which fell 55% to gross another $2.4 million for a domestic total of $165.4 million.

Moving onto the arthouse side of things, The Big Sick continued to churn out massive box office by grossing $1.6 million at only 71 locations for a gigantic per-theater average of $23,552 that even dwarfed the opening weekend per-theater average of Despicable Me 3 by a sizable margin. In ten days The Big Sick has grossed $2.2 million and I'm sure there's plenty of dollars yet to come. Expanding into wide release this weekend, Beatriz At Dinner grossed $1.1 million at 683 theaters for a per-theater average of $1,639 and a current domestic total of $4.7 million. The Hero expanded into 401 theaters this weekend and grossed $920,315 for a solid per-theater average of $2,295. This one's grossed $1.6 million and has been showing solid stamina over the last few weeks so expect further theater expansion next weekend.

Premiering this weekend was the controversial Allison Brie comedy The Little Hours which got off to a great $61,560 start from just two theaters for a per-theater average of $30,780. Expanding into more theaters was The Bad Batch, which failed to gain much traction as it went down 69% from opening weekend despite adding 16 theaters. Grossing only $27,736 from 46 theaters for a per-theater average of only $603, The Bad Batch just burned out this weekend and has only grossed $146,810 after ten days. Finally, the German drama 13 Minutes premiered in America two years after its home country debut to only $12,612 from 4 locations for a per-theater average of $4,204.

The Top 12 movies this weekend grossed a total of only $161.4 million, on the lower end for a 21st century late June/early July weekend. Summer 2017 has only grossed $1.8 million so far and with a dismal blockbuster-free August on the horizon, it's very likely this will be the first summer moviegoing season since 2006 to gross under $4 billion. That's a shocking possibility but not too surprising given how so many blockbusters (The Mummy, Alien: Covenant, King Arthur, Cars 3) have bombed domestically and the lack of massive horror or comedy moneymakers that have really made all the difference in past summers are nowhere to be found. Let's see if Spidey, Apes, Dunkirk, Atomic Blonde and The Big Sick in July 2017 can get summer 2017 on a more fortunate box office track....