‘The Incredibles 2’ was expected to easily take the #1 spot at the weekend box office this weekend and it did, in a major way. The sequel to the 2004 Disney/Pixar classic cleaned up with a truly incredible $180 million, which is 70% of the $261.4M that the first movie made during its entire theatrical run! In fact, it made more in one weekend than previous Pixar flicks, ‘A Bug’s Life’, ‘Cars 3’ and ‘Good Dinosaur’ made in their entire theatrical runs. ‘The Incredibles 2’ made $71.6M on its opening day (with Wednesday IMAX and Thursday preview showings added in), compared to ‘Finding Dory’‘s $54.7M. Its $180M opening weekend also bests ‘Dory”s $135M. That makes this the best opening ever for an animated movie. This is also the eighth best opening ever for any kind of film. The Parr family zipped past other superhero movies like ‘Captain America: Civil War’, ‘Iron Man 3’, ‘Batman V Superman’ and ‘The Dark Knight Rises’.
‘The Incredibles 2’ is a winner no matter how you slice it. Its CinemaScore is a glowing “A+,” while PostTrak reports that audiences gave it five out of five stars and 92% positive. Its aggregate score on Rotten Tomatoes is 94%– Certified Fresh.
Knowing that ‘The Incredibles 2’ was opening this weekend, other studios, for the most part, sat it out. The one other new movie to have any impact was adult-targeted comedy ‘Tag’ starring Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Hannibal Buress, Isla Fisher, Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, and Annabelle Wallis. It was hoped that ‘Tag’ would follow in the footsteps of ‘Game Night’, another adult-skewing comedy but while that movie got great reviews, ‘Tag’ has a pretty crummy 54% ranking on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences were more forgiving, with ‘Tag’ earning a “B+” CinemaScore, 78%/four stars for PostTrak. But that was just among people who turned out to see this movie. According to Relish Mix, many online view this comedy, based on a group of adult friends who play an amped up game of tag into adulthood, as a one note joke… and a dumb one at that.
It doesn’t help that a large chunk of the adult audience that want a comedy are sticking with last week’s champ ‘Oceans 8’, while for most adults, this was a weekend for the whole family, taking their kids to see ‘The Incredibles 2’.
Top Five:
- The Incredibles 2 (Disney) – $180M
- Ocean’s 8 (Warner Brothers/Village Roadshow) – $19.6M
- Tag (New Line/Warner Brothers) – $14.6M
- Solo: A Star Wars Story (Disney) – $9M
- Deadpool 2 (20th Century Fox) – $8.8M
Elsewhere, ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ opened in China to an amazing $125.3M. That brings its global gross to $381M and it hasn’t even opened in the US yet! In the 48 markets where ‘Fallen Kingdom’ has opened, it has arrived at #1 at the box office.
In China, ‘Fallen Kingdom”s opening day took in more than twice what the first ‘Jurassic World’ earned on its opening day. However in that country, ‘Jurassic’ still lags behind ‘Furious 7’ and ‘Fate of the Furious’. ‘Avengers: Infinity War”s opening also topped this one.
Including the original movies from the ’90s, the ‘Jurassic’ series has now topped $4 billion worldwide. That pushes it into the top ten franchises of all time.
In a flip-flop move, next week ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ will open in the US, while ‘The Incredibles 2’ will open in China. It should be interesting to see how that works out in both regions. Can the dinosaurs take a bite out of ‘The Incredibles 2’ in the US? Will the Parr family be enough to tame the dinos in China? Check back next week to find out!
Source: Deadline
