The Weekend Report

Despicable Me 3 led holiday moviegoing with an estimated $75.4 million. There was also good news for counterprogrammer Baby Driver, which vroomed into second place with its $20.3 million opening.

The session also saw significant expansions for Southern gothic The Beguiled and the cross-cultural rom-com The Big Sick. Beguiled went medium-wide to an upbeat $3.2 million. Sick, still limited, maintained a sturdy $23,660 average and $1.7 million tally. Also holding its own in slow roll out was The Hero, with takings of $890,000. Exclusive newcomers were dull apart from comedy The Little Hours that grossed $59,600 from two screens for debuting alternative distributor Gunpowder and Sky.

While initial buzz for chase-and-robbers musical Baby Driver was strong, the sleeper title was guesstimated at a $16- $18 million bow by industry trackers. Its Wednesday launch racked up $9 million in two days and pushed up weekend expectations that it fulfilled. Its audience skewed 55% male with 61% aged 25 and older.

International day-and-date Yalghaar, from Pakistan, opened to $21,300.

Revenues for the run up to Independence Day hovered around $175 million for a 23% uptick from last weekend. It was nonetheless a 9% decline from the 2016 holiday span when the third weekend of Finding Dory staved off a trio of newcomers with a $41.8 million weekend. On its dorsal fins were debs The Legend of Tarzan with $38.5 million and The Purge: Election Day grossing $31.5 million.

The good will toward all manner of Minion stoked expectations of a $90 million launch for Despicable Me 3. But as opening day neared, and preview revenues trickled in prognosticators tamped down expectations to the low $80 millions.

This season’s sequel or franchise titles have underperformed. That list includes the incarnations of Aliens, Smurfs and Pirates of the Caribbean. But saying “fatigue” aloud, next weekend’s launch of Spider-Man: Homecoming is likely to reverse the tide.

Despicable Me 3 boasted the best opening for an animated feature in the past calendar year. Studio exit polls says the audience was equally divided among the sexes with 50% of the audience aged 13 old or younger. Viewers identifying as families accounted for 69% of the opening crowd.

The threequel opened two weeks ago in a handful of international territories and amassed about $21 million going into the current weekend. Its third overseas week saw the addition of 46 foreign markets and an estimated $95 million. Top grossing nations included the UK with $14.7 million, Mexico grossing $13.5 million and Russian buddies adding $9.2 million.

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