Finding Dorycannot be beat at the box office. Pixar’s forgetful fish triumphed for the third weekend in a row, besting newcomersThe Legend of Tarzan,The BFG, andThe Purge: Election Year. According toDeadline, the film “rose from $13.4M on Friday to an estimated $14.7M on Saturday in what will be a$41.9Mthree-day and$50.5Mfour-day. By next week,Dorywill overtakeToy Story 3($415M) as the highest grossing Pixar movie of all-time at the domestic box office.” However, Dory will need to just keep swimming if she hopes to take the record of highest grossing Disney animated film (The Lion Kingwith $422.8M) and the highest-grossing animated film of all-time,Shrek 2($441.2M) Those are milestones that are well within reach.
Second place went toThe Legend of Tarzan, which outperformed expectations and came in with a $38.1M three-day and a $43M-$44M four-day. The film earned an A- CinemaScore from moviegoers, and it will be interesting to see if the film, which cost $180 million, has legs in the weeks ahead. It will also be interesting to see how the film performs in China.
Moving on,The Purge: Election Yearnabbed the third place slot, and also outperformed expectations by raking in “$30.9M three-day opening — second best opening in the series behind 2013’sThe Purge’s $34M — and a four-day of $34M.” With an estimated production cost of $10 million,Election Yearhas already made back its budget before P&A.
The biggest flop of the weekend goes toThe BFG, which came in fourth place. The film only pulled in a three-day opening of$19.6Mand is expected to make $23.6M over the holiday weekend. That’s an abysmal opener for someone of Steven Spielberg’s pedigree and with a production cost of $140M, this is going to be a big write-off for Disney.
Here’s the Top 10 for the weekend.
Finding Dory
$50,500,000
The Legend of Tarzan
$45,500,000
The Purge: Election Year
$34,000,000
$23,600,000
Independence Day: Resurgence
$20,100,000
Central Intelligence
$14,900,000
The Shallows
$10,700,000
Free State of Jones
$5,070,000
The Conjuring 2
$4,400,000
Now You See Me 2
$3,600,000
