‘Inside Out’ and ‘Minions’ Are Pulling In Big Box Office

For the second weekend in a row, Inside Out fell a couple million short of Jurassic World’s CGI dinosaurs for the first-place spot, but the film continues to perform phenomenally well. Pixar’s cerebral animated feature posted a small week-to-week decline, dropping 42.1% to $52.3 million. It’s the best second-frame hold for a Pixar film since 2009, when another Pete Docter-directed film, Up, dropped just 35.2%.

What may be worth noting is that Inside Out very likely drew a larger moviegoing audience over the weekend than its dino competitor, which ended with $54.5M. However, thanks to a lacking 3D presentation, the Pixar film’s 3D gross comprised just 25% of its box office. Meanwhile, Jurassic World is doing significantly bigger business in 3D, with over 40% of its gross coming from the glasses, while also benefiting from higher ticket prices at its 365 Imax hubs.

Launching in third place was Seth MacFarlane’s live-action/CG hybrid Ted 2, which debuted with $33.5 million. While the sequel did cost more to produce than the original ($85 million vs. $50 million) and debuted with $20 million less than the original, it should nonetheless wind up being profitable after wrapping its global run. Its unspectacular performance, however, puts into question whether MacFarlane will be allowed to stretch his one-note raunchy bear-shtick into a three-quel.

Internationally, Inside Out earned $26.4M last weekend, boosting its foreign cume to $81.5M, but the real story abroad was the continuing rollout of Universal/Illumination’s Minions, which is shaping up to become a massive global hit. The yellow bloblets scored $36 million in their second major global weekend, lifting their total to $51.7M. Their biggest debut was in the UK, with a number one launch of $18 million, followed by a record-setting biggest-ever animation debut in Brazil with $7 million. Minions also launched in first place in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and New Zealand.

In these early international markets, Minions has been outpacing its predecessor Despicable Me 2, which we should mention is the fourth highest-grossing animated feature of all-time, behind Frozen, Toy Story 3, and The Lion King. In other words, expect some records to be potentially broken this summer as yellow fever threatens to turn into a full-blown pandemic.