Minions: The Rise of Gru now has $154 million domestic (After a $13 million Wednesday which was down 22% from its monster $17 million Tuesday which was actually up from its $16 million Monday) and $288 million worldwide in just six days of release. It will eclipse Sing 2 ($161 million) to become the biggest animated film since Frozen 2 by the time you read this. As Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder hopes for $158 million in its debut weekend, I’m really hoping that the movie has a better hold than Minions which fell 57% from its $115 million debut to $49 million. Especially since it’s one of the best movies of the year and is way better than the original. Even if The Bad Guys is still the best animated film this year.
If it adds $60 million in week 2, good. But looking at the impressive mid week numbers, if it falls 29% like Top Gun: Maverick, it will add $71 million to its running tally or however much most people expected the movie to open with. If it plays like that film, it will be the second biggest animated film in America behind Incredibles 2. However, that’s unlikely. That said, with $4 billion worldwide, Despicable Me has surpassed Shrek, Ice Age and Toy Story as the biggest animated franchise ever.
Hilariously enough, despite being intended as a “kids movie” the film’s exit polls showed that there were more teens and young adults that showed up to the film than children and their parents. This could mean one of these two things. A. The movie is actually an indication of surprise franchise redemption (Its the best installment of the franchise since Despicable Me 2) or B. The teens and young adults that grew up with the franchise especially ones that saw the first movie back in 2010 and enjoyed it a lot when they were teenagers such as myself wanted to unironically show up to the film for nostalgic purposes.
That said, maybe ever since Sing 2 improved upon the first film (Which was already good to begin with), this could be the beginning of a new era for Illumination where they aim their films at not just kids but teens and grownups as well. #GentleMinions memes aside, the movie is actually a massive improvement over the original which played more like a toddler bait movie than an actual franchise flick whereas Rise of Gru plays like a great prequel to a great film (Think Scarlett Johansson’s (Excellent) Black Widow (Which honestly deserves sequel more than Zack Snyder’s Justice League) taking place in between Anthony and Joe Russo’s (Terrific) Captain America: Civil War and (The superb) Avengers: Infinity War or Gareth Edwards’ (Darn good) Rogue One taking place in between George Lucas’ (Criminally Underrated) Revenge of the Sith and (The phenomenal) A New Hope) that doesn’t retcon anything.
That Minions: The Rise of Gru played to the die hard nostalgic teens/young adults as opposed to children 12 or under impresses me. If it can thrive against Paws of Fury (Which had a trailer in front of almost every movie I saw this year including Top Gun: Maverick of all films!) and be the only game in town for animation until Uh… Disney’s Strange World, then it will end up with $1 billion worldwide.
Mathew's Entertainment stuff 