Box Office: Finding Dory Dominates, Warcraft Doesn't Respawn

In a summer that has been somewhat unkind to blockbuster sequels, Finding Dory has managed to break the trend to become yet another smash hit for Pixar animation. The film opened with $136 million over the weekend -- the largest opening weekend for an animated feature ever -- and close to double the $70 million the first film debuted with back in 2003. Pixar are moving ahead with numerous other sequels including Toy Story 4, Cars 3 and the long-awaited Incredibles 2 and looking at these numbers it's not hard to see why. This opening is a far cry from the rare misstep the studio made last winter with original film The Good Dinosaur, which went on to become the lowest grossing feature Pixar has made to date. Finding Dory more than makes up for that film's shortcomings and proves that audiences young and old still have a lot of time for Pixar movies.

 

The other big new release over the weekend was Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart's action-comedy Central Intelligence which came in at number two with an opening of $34.5 million. This opening matches that of Hart's previous starring role (January's Ride Along 2), and has generally been seen as a solid if unremarkable start for the movie which is projected to finish with a domestic gross of around $90 million.

 

Still, while Central Intelligence's opening may not be turning any heads at least it isn't shocking people Warcraft-style, as the videogame adaptation continues to be rejected by American audiences. Indeed, after the film's meagre $25 million opening it was all but guaranteed to flop in the US, however a miniscule second week drop would have done at least a small amount of damage control. Sadly, the film had no such luck falling a huge 73% and making just $6.5 million on its second weekend. That's the third highest second week drop ever for a film screening in more than 3,000 locations, behind only 2009's Friday the 13th and last year's Fifty Shades of Grey. The film's fate now weighs even more heavily on Chinese audiences, with whom it continues to be a smash-hit.


The Conjuring 2 and Now You See Me 2 both suffered from greater second week drops than their respective first entries, although nothing quite as brutal as Warcraft. The Conjuring 2 fell 61.5% in comparison to 2013's The Conjuring which fell a more reasonable 46.9% in its sophomore weekend. This is only slightly disappointing as thanks to the affordable nature of these films, The Conjuring 2 is still a big success and this is a franchise that shows no signs of slowing down.

One franchise that might put the brakes on just a little is Now You See Me, as the more expensive second film continues to underperform. The film's 56.9% drop leaves it with a ten-day domestic total that is nearly $20 million less than the original film had at this point in its run. Whether or not the third film still goes ahead is unclear, but if it does don't be surprised if its given a smaller budget.

Here's the top ten in full:

1. (-) Finding Dory - $136.1 million
2. (-) Central Intelligence - $34.5 million
3. (1) The Conjuring 2 - $15.5 million
4. (3) Now You See Me 2 - $9.6 million
5. (2) Warcraft - $6.5 million
6. (5) X-Men: Apocalypse - $5.21 million
7. (4) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows - $5.2 million
8. (6) Me Before You - $4.1 million
9. (8) Alice Through The Looking Glass - $3.6 million
10. (9) Captain America: Civil War - $2.2 million
 

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