The July 4th holiday weekend is over. While America recovers from celebrating the biggest cup of cold tea in human history, who will be celebrating success at the box office on one of the biggest movie-going weekends of the year?
Illumination and Universal’s Despicable Me 4 topped the charts. A three-day holiday stash of over $75 million and a five-day opening weekend (Wed-Sun) of $122.6 million beats the projections.
There was another $106.9 million from overseas. As Illumination manages to make these movies for less than half of what Disney/Pixar generally spends on an animated movie, the chances are that it is already turning a profit for them.
Inside Out 2 grossed a further $30 million US and $78.3 million international. This takes it to $1.22 billion and makes it the top-grosser of the year so far. My kids went to see it yesterday and were not exactly raving about it, but it probably had too few space lasers and explosions for them.
In third was A Quiet Place: Day One with $21 million domestically and $21.4 million global, taking the worldwide to $178.2 million.
Ti West’s MaXXXine which pulled in $6.7 million in fourth place, and God-bothering Angel Studios’ Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot which scored just $3.2 million. Bad Boys: Ride or Die came fifth, taking it’s global haul at the box office to $360.2 million.
It is not great news for Hollywood, as Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1 disproves the theory that you can put “American” in the title of anything and people across the US will go and see it. It’s a massive flop with just $5.5 million over the weekend, taking its total to a disappointing $22.2 million.
The Fall Guy and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga are also high-profile flops this year, and the box office is currently running between 15% and 18% down on last year, an acknowledged terrible year financially for the world of movies.
Twisters, Deadpool & Wolverine, Alien: Romulus, The Crow, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice are still to come from this tentpole season, so chances of a box office recovery have to be judged as mixed right now.