Will Ferrell suffers one of the worst box office earnings of his career; Despicable Me 3 crushes the competition and Baby Driver shocks and surprises audiences this week at the box office.
Despicable Me 3 won the weekend box office destroying the competition with an opening at about $82 million, making it the sixth biggest opening of the year. That number is on par with Despicable Me 2 but lags behind the Minions movie, which made a jaw-dropping $115 million opening weekend in July of 2015. That said, it continues on an undefeated streak for Illumination Entertainment, which creates computer animated movies for about half of what Pixar does and still earns as much money. Essentially, Despicable Me 3 is a winning brand, and while their movies are not targeted towards adults, kids seem to love these films.
Meanwhile, Edgar Wright and his Atlanta-filmed movie Baby Driver, hit theaters this weekend. The movie not only earned Wright the best opening weekend of his career but it also made $27 million, which is only $4 million short of his cumulative gross for any film Wright has directed. In fact, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World earned $31 million in 2010.
Transformers: The Last Knight dropped 64% in the box office with a $16 million second weekend. After ten days, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has earned $291 million. Overseas, Transformers made $200 million in its opening week alone.
Fourth place goes to Wonder Woman, which continues to dominate in the box office. Wonder Woman added another $15 million making it the highest-grossing live-action movie ever by a female director and the highest grossing movie in the DC Extended Universe, beating Batman vs. Superman and Suicide Squad.
Cars 3 took fifth place this weekend, falling to $10 million after Despicable Me 3 hit theaters and took out their target audience. It has earned $121 million domestically, but, the movie will improve once the film is released overseas.
Finally, in at sixth place is the weekend’s huge disappointment, The House, which cost more money than Baby Driver and featured bigger actors, but only made a fraction of Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver. The House starred Will Ferrel, Amy Poehler and cost $40 million dollars to make but, the movie finished with only $9.3 million. The House made less money than Will Ferrell’s first movie, A Night at the Roxbury. Excluding low-budget films and supporting roles, it is the smallest opening weekend of Will Ferrell’s career. The movie currently has a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Next weekend, Spider-Man: Homecoming hits theaters.