It looks like we’ve got another animated franchise on our hands. Illumination Entertainment and Universal’s The Secret Life of Pets got off to a strong start at the box office on Friday as it looked headed for a weekend total just over $90 million, but today the full weekend estimates are in and it appears as though Pets has joined the $100 million club. According to estimates, the animated comedy scored a massive $103.2 million this weekend, which firmly pushes it past Inside Out’s $90.4 million to take the record for the biggest original animated film opening. It also holds the sixth-best opening of 2016, behind Captain America: Civil War, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Finding Dory, Deadpool, and The Jungle Book.

This also solidifies Pets as a franchise play for Illumination Entertainment, which thus far has found great success with Despicable Me and Minions but had yet to break out of that specific franchise box. The studio is now firmly in the leagues of Pixar, DreamWorks Animation, and Disney when it comes to commercial successes, and they show no signs of slowing down with the music-centric Sing on tap for the coming holiday season, Despicable Me 3 arriving next year, and a Benedict Cumberbatch-fronted How the Grinch Stole Christmas on the calendar for 2018. With these box office numbers, The Secret Life of Pets will no doubt spawn a sequel, so look for that formal announcement sooner rather than later.


finding-dory-movie-image
Image via Pixar

The weekend’s other new release, the comedy Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, performed so-so with $16.6 million against a budget of $33 million, which is enough to land in fourth place. Third place went to Finding Dory, which was finally dethroned by Pets and scored $20.3 million over the weekend, bringing its domestic total to $422 million which solidifies it as 2016’s highest grossing film. Globally, the Pixar sequel has raked in $642.8 million and will surely be one of the biggest hits of the year when all is said and done.

The Legend of Tarzan continues to have a fairly solid hold, as Harry Potter director David Yates’ passion project secured second place with $20.6 million in its second weekend for a domestic total of $81.4 million. While that’s far from the blockbuster numbers a film of this size is expected to hit, this thing is not the disastrous bomb many were predicting.

Unfortunately, Steven Spielberg’s sensitive and far more nuanced family film The BFG absolutely tumbled in its second weekend, grossing only $8 million from over 3,000 theaters for a fall of 57%. Its domestic total is now a paltry $39 despite the fact that a film of this quality deserves far better—it’s not top tier Spielberg, but it's certainly more accomplished and emotionally mature than most of the family films out there.

Check out the full Top 10 estimates below.

Rank

Title

Weekend Gross

Total Gross

1.

The Secret Life of Pets

$103,170,000

$103,170,000

2.

The Legend of Tarzan

$20,615,000

$81,412,712

3.

Finding Dory

$20,351,000

$422,580,243

4.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

$16,600,000

$16,600,000

5.

The Purge: Election Year

$11,700,000

$58,110,275

6.

Central Intelligence

$8,125,000

$108,325,338

7.

Independence Day: Resurgence

$7,700,000

$91,495,582

8.

The BFG

$7,604,000

$38,738,762

9.

The Shallows

$4,800,000

$45,825,279

10.

Sultan

$2,216,475

$3,228,560


mike-and-dave-need-wedding-dates-zac-efron-adam-devine-anna-kendrick
Image via 20th Century Fox