Monday Box Office Report: FINDING DORY finds massive record breaking success

This weekend’s US box office was just a bunch of fishy business, and damn was business good. Disney/Pixar’s long-awaited Finding Nemo sequel, Finding Dory, opened in the States this Friday past and went onto make about as big a splash possible for an animated movie. Audiences found their way to their cinemas in droves, giving Finding Dory a record-breaking total opening weekend haul of $136.1 million.

That figure gave Finding Dory the honour of getting the biggest domestic opening for an animated movie, the biggest opening day for an animated movie ($54.9 million) and the biggest Thursday previews total for an animated movie ($9.2 million). And if all the domestic accolades weren’t enough, overseas it also had a big $50 million opening in China, the largest Pixar has ever managed in the Middle Kingdom. This just continues the incredible streak of box office success found by Disney this year, after Zootopia, The Jungle Book and Captain America: Civil War all became gigantic earners.

(On a side note, this must be a huge relief for director Andrew Stanton, whose last film was the box office dud John Carter – a movie that I will continue to love and defend as long as I can, irrespective of what other critics say)

Forced to play second fiddle to Finding Dory is the Dwayne Johnson/Kevin Hart comedy vehicle Central Intelligence. The movie may be getting mostly terrible reviews, but audiences apparently don’t seem to care as they propelled the film to a reasonably solid $34.5 million debut.

The introduction of these titles onto the charts – and especially Finding Dory just sucking up most of the box office dollars for itself – unfortunately meant that the existing titles on the chart didn’t just move down as expected, but some took gigantic plunges. After debuting at #1 last week, The Conjuring‘s earnings fell an unexpectedly steep 61.5%, and Now You See Me 2 followed suit with a 56% decline. But it’s Warcraft that made the biggest wave for all the wrong reasons. Despite the fact that international audiences are still lapping up the fantasy action adventure having brought in another $42.1 million internationally for a current global tally of $377 million, US audiences were not even remotely as receptive, as the Duncan Jones directed film took the third largest plummet in US box office history. Its earnings fell 73% with it bringing in just $6.5 million. Ouch.

Here’s what’s happening on the rest of the charts:

• 01. Finding Dory – $136.18 million (NE)
• 02. Central Intelligence – $34.5 million (NE)
• 03. The Conjuring 2 – $15.55 million (LW: 1)
• 04. Now You See Me 2 – $9.65 million (LW: 3)
• 05. Warcraft – $6.52 million (LW: 2)
• 06. X-Men: Apocalypse – $5.21 million (LW: 5)
• 07. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows – $5.2 million (LW: 4)
• 08. Me Before You – $4.15 million (LW: 6)
• 09. Alice Through the Looking Glass – $3.61 million (LW: 8)
• 10. Captain America: Civil War – $2.29 million (LW: 9)

Of note about this week’s US Top 10 is that Captain America: Civil War‘s last breath gasp on the charts has allowed it to become the first film of 2016 to cross the $400 million domestic mark. This week also sees Disney’s other box office juggernaut for the year, The Jungle Book, finally dropping out of the top 10. It made a global total of $922.41 million with $355 million coming from the US alone.

(LW = Last Week, NE = New Entry)

Last Updated: June 20, 2016