Minions: The Rise Of Gru is top ba-na-na at the July 4 weekend box office
Don't celebrate America this weekend, celebrate these horrible yellow monsters
Aux News Minions
After last week’s stunning duel between Top Gun: Maverick and Elvis, with not even $200 separating first and second place at the weekend box office, a true champion has arrived to shut both of those movies down with a devastating show of force. We’re talking about Minions: The Rise Of Gru, the sequel to the spin-off that is actually a prequel to the original, which opened to $108.5 million—which is $75 million more than what Top Gun: Maverick made in second place (it’s sitting at $564 million after six weeks, though, so it’s fine).
Third place went to last week’s winner, Elvis, which fell nearly 40 percent to $19 million and has a total of $67 million after two weeks. After that is Jurassic World Dominion, which has made $331 million but only made $15 million this week. After that is The Black Phone ($12 million this week, $47 million total) and Lightyear ($6 million this week, $105 million total after three weeks).
Then there’s a big cliff, with nothing else on the chart even making more than $1 million, but the rest of the top 10 is new addition Mr. Malcolm’s List, Everything Everywhere All At Once in its 15th week, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, and Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (which seems to be paying homage to A24 label-mate Everything Everywhere’s slow box office rollout by jumping up 60 percent as it expands to 16 additional theaters).
Basically, one movie made a lot of money, five or six movies made good money, and the rest of the movies get millennial participation trophies just for showing up. The full top 10 is below, courtesy of Box Office Mojo.
- Minions: The Rise Of Gru
- Top Gun: Maverick
- Elvis
- Jurassic World Dominion
- The Black Phone
- Lightyear
- Mr. Malcolm’s List
- Everything Everywhere All At Once
- Doctor Stranger In The Multiverse Of Madness
- Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
48 Comments
Geez. Minions already made more than Lightyear has done in its entire run. That has to sting hard.
I mean just looking at the budget to box office it’s made more profit than a lot of films this year.
For a company that could do no wrong, the pandemic era has not been kind to the Mouse House. Not that they’re going broke or anything, but the sheen of invincibility is gone.
Add the value of it being on Disney+ not too far distant future this was inevitable. They unfortunately didn’t think the pipeline was going to lead to in person fatigue, add an origin story kids (since that’s who Pixar continues to target) weren’t asking for. Disney (and hopefully the others emulating them) are hopefully taking note.
I’ve seen a lot of posts about how “kids” aren’t interested in Lightyear and frankly I suspect it’s just adults projecting. I haven’t talked to a kid under ten who didn’t want to go see it. I think adults are asking “why” and saying it will be on Disney+ in 6 weeks and skipping it with their kids. But by that same logic you can ask “why?” About a second Minions movie and I’m sure it will be streaming in 6 weeks too on Peacock.
Yeah but these kids don’t even know who Buzz Lightyear is. The parents are the ones who pay for them to take their kids to the movie theatre. It’s not children’s money Disney wants, it’s their parents money. So it’s really not fair to say that’s an invalid opinion because if a parent wants to take their kid to Minions instead of Lightyear than your point is moot.
Kids absolutely know who Buzz Lightyear is. The last Toy Story movie happened 3 years ago. The movies are in heavy rotation on TV. Disney uses the Toy Story characters in many promotions and ads. The Disney Parks have entire areas dedicated to the Pixar characters.The Toy Story franchise has become timeless. I’d suspect as recognizable and beloved Disney characters I’d bet that only Mickey and the gang rank higher. Maybe Winnie the Pooh and friends as well.
Its also worth noting that, given that 40+% of their revenue pre-pandemic was in parks and cruises and stuff like that, they are not in a great place to be having box office issues too
Speaking of that why didn’t they do any remodeling of the Disney parks while they were closed. The workers could of wore masks.
Oh man, that’s actually a huge thing, because they were/are in the middle of a HUGE remodel of World for the 50th anniversary and used the pandemic to sneakily do a huge redesign of their FastPass system, but the pandemic delayed multiple new rides and caused the big event to have a ton of congestion. Even now there’s construction issues, though what exactly is going on is not super clear – there’s some reports its a result of budget cuts and bet hedging, there’s others saying that there’s design issues, there’s others saying its construction disputes. Its a whole mess.
They’ve run out of creativity and keep reusing the same theme over and over. Self-Acceptance!! Yea, we get it…
That’s definitely true when it comes to Pixar. But Disney’s own animation division released Encanto during the pandemic, which seems to have really connected with people. Its Marvel movies are, if anything, doing better now — Multiverse of Madness has already made $300 million more than the last Dr. Strange movie, and Spider-Man: No Way Home is at close to $2 billion.Disney’s 137 million streaming subscribers are likely the thing the company is most excited about. And while that’s far fewer than Netflix, Disney can feel fairly confident that its numbers are more stable. Kids aren’t likely to stop endlessly rewatching the content the service already has, and adults are likely to keep watching new Marvel and Star Wars shows, in a way that Netflix can’t count on when, say, Stranger Things ends.
For a company that could do no wrong, the pandemic era has not been kind to the Mouse House. The pandemic era was incredibly, unbelievably kind to Disney. Look at the movies they released in 2019, the last full year they could. Captain Marvel (March): $427MDumbo (March): $115MAvengers: Endgame (April): $858MAladdin (May): $356MToy Story 4 (June): $434MThe Lion King (July): $544MMaleficent 2 (October): $114MFrozen II (November): $477MStar Wars IX (December): $515MWho releases THREE live action remakes in one calendar year? I mean, if one were a conspiracy theorist, one could argue that Disney created the pandemic. They cashed out in 2019, ending the Avengers and Star Wars series, and started Disney+ a few months before the lockdown. They got our money in the theaters and then in home subscriptions. Yes, they lost money on Onward, Mulan, and Black Widow, but their 2020 slate was so slight in comparison that they could, and did, afford the loss.
Ignore comments like that, there’s a lot of people who are trying to will the downfall of Disney with their narrative. Even on this thread there’s already a homophobic comment about Lightyear. Anyone claiming that things are looking bad for Disney are homophobes that hated Lightyear or racist/misogynist MCU and Star Wars fans that are enraged about the recent addition of more ethnically and female protagonists. Literally just ignore those comments they aren’t real.
“yeah the MCU is on its last legs” – no it isn’t you just hate (checks current notes) brown girls.
Unlike Lightyear, Minions has the advantage of not making 90% of the population uncomfortable.
Why would Lightyear make 90% of the population comfortable?
Because of the lesbian kiss – you’re responding to a homophobic asswipe.
Lol to your assumption that 90% of the population are homophobic bigots. That’s really rich that you think 90% of people share your shitty outdated beliefs.
Yeah. It’s kinda crazy. We saw Lightyear this weekend and it wasn’t bad. I’m sure it’s better then Minions 2: more minions
Dreamworks makes movies that young children actually want to see again and again, and find entertaining. What a crazy idea, right?
should have made a movie people wanted to see!
I laughed at your comment but then I noticed your username… “AlwaysConsideringSuicide” is pretty shitty dude. I’m a mental health patient who has at one point been suicidal. Your username isn’t cool, funny or edgy.
??? Who said it was supposed to be cool, funny, or edgy?
Just watched the trailer. The writer/director sure do like that Guy Ritchie slomo.There’s some violence in this movie and, of course, everything is frenetic AF. Do kids even have attention spans anymore?
I ask the same thing about 25 year olds.
25 years olds = kids (a bit taller usually).
I’m not saying the Minions movies are good but the frantic pace is in the same mold as Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry. Kids have never had attention spans
My kid’s will sure as fuck rewatch this movie 50 times.
It’s modern day Looney Tunes for young children, don’t be so snobby.
For Mister Kitty:It’s weird when commenters think they have something to contribute, but they just can’t resist insulting the person they’re replying to.
You’re so in love with your own farts, I couldn’t help myself.
“Do kids even have attention spans anymore?”
No. They never did.
Have you ever MET a kid?
Chalk it up to another financially successful, if not utterly forgettable franchise spin-off like the Shrek movies.Kids need something to see. Minions are a recognizable property. It’s all low-effort, big gains at this point until something else comes along.
I’m afraid to tell you that Shrek wasn’t a forgettable franchise. Some of those kids will have nostalgic experience when they’re grow up, like some of us nostalgic for Fantasia, Space Jam, Roger Rabbit & Hocus Pocus (it doesn’t need a sequel).
I think spinoff is operative here. There’s a new Puss in Boots coming out soon. I can’t wait to find out what happened after the events of the last one.
I don’t think they’re just taking kids to see whatever is out there. Kids didn’t go see Lightyear and most kids movies don’t make anywhere near this kind of bank. People seem to really like the Despicable Me and Minions stuff.
Seems appropriate because women will now be forced to give birth to minions, even in the event of rape and incest(which is the only way Minions reproduce)
(Sad.)
Even during my most closed-minded, knuckle-dragging, hardcore-fundie conservative days of my youth, when I did think the rights of the unborn outweighed pretty much every other issue, I always thought that exceptions for rape were pretty much the definition of a no-brainer. And if anyone had told me that, no, even 10-year-olds would be denied abortions in conservative states, I would have rebuked them for implying that conservatives would be such heartless monsters.I feel like one of our political parties, instead of merely being used to further enrich and empower the already-privileged elite, has revealed itself to be run by actual, honest-to-badness Bond villains. Like, they’re not even bothering to hide or justify their villainy anymore.
I guess the bright side is that since the life of the individual begins at conception, the pregnant mother will be qualified for immediate child support and can claim her fertilized egg as a dependent.
I am kind of surprised that Everything Everywhere All At Once is still raking in decent amount of money for weeks.I really need to give this movie a watch.
It’s such a good movie!
It’s the best movie.
I just recently watched it. It really is that good. I don’t really think it’s comparable to Doctor Strange but that’s a popular comparison so I’ll say this, it’s a much better film.
“these horrible yellow monsters” are way less toxic than america.
I was confused by the link to last week’s article that says Elvis came in second but this one says it won.BOM shows a bigger gulf than $200, were projections wrong or do they have straggling reporters? I never figured out how these figures come into being since they generally never had major discrepancies or the record wouldn’t measurably change these ranking outcomes.
What about Sha-Na-Na with the top ba-na-na?