When there’s movies playin’ in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? Animated pets!
Or so said American moviegoers this weekend. Despite the arrival of Ghostbusters, the much-ballyhooed big-budget remake of the 1984 semi-classic, another film stood atop the doghouse once again. The Secret Life of Pets dug up an estimated $50.6 million in its North American backyard, bringing its total haul to a howl-worthy $203.1 million. That’s nothing to growl at.
‘Course, in terms of its overall gross, it has a ways to catch the other animated movie in the Top Five this weekend.
After five weeks in theaters, Pixar’s Finding Dory is starting to show a few wrinkles around the gills. Still, it floundered to $11 million more this week for a fourth-place finish. More importantly, it became the most lucrative animated movie in domestic box office history, its $445.5 million total haul darting past 2004’s Shrek 2 ($441.2 million) for the honors. Quite the treasure to haul in from the briny deep, me hearties.
With all the love being shown animated movies this weekend, Ghostbusters wasn’t able to scare up much interest. Oh, it did well enough, pulling in $46 million with its nifty proton packs to finish second. Still, given the fact that Sony Pictures spent $144 million to make the thing, it seems it’ll be a while yet before Sony execs will be able to say that busting makes them feel good.
Oh, and a note to future movie execs. Given the rather lackluster takes of the new Independence Day and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies, seems like audiences are pretty much done with the ’80s and ’90s.
They’re totally cool with stuff from the turn of the last century, though. The Legend of Tarzan, based on a character that first saw the light of day in 1912, swung its way to another $11.1 million, just edging Finding Dory for third place. It has officially collected $103.1 million in three weekends of work.
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates rounds out the Top Five with $7.5 million. Meanwhile The Infiltrator, the weekend’s only new release outside Ghostbusters, never came close to infiltrating the upper echelons of the box office. It banked just $5.3 million and finished eighth.
Final figures update: 1. The Secret Life of pets, $50.8 million; 2. Ghostbusters, $46 million; 3. The Legend of Tarzan, $11.4 million; 4. Finding Dory, $11.3 million; 5. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, $7.7 million.
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