Glenn Walker here with the Weekend Box Office Wrap-Up Report to see how Biff Bam Pop! Founder and Box Office Guru Andy Burns did with his Predictions from Thursday evening.
Whether it was the clever and early marketing of the film, or the voice talents of Louis CK and Kevin Hart (to name just a couple), or simply the concept of finding out what our pets may be up to while we’re out – The Secret Life of Pets ruled the box office this weekend with over a whopping $100 million in ticket sales. With Tarzan and Dory pulling a distant but respectable second place, this was certainly a pet weekend. Meet me after the jump for a closer look at the box office numbers.
As I said, The Secret Life of Pets, with its long year of previews, brought the crowds in literally by the millions. Holding strong but way back there in the $20 million range were The Legend of Tarzan (which as an old school pulp guy, I loved) and the Nemo sequel from Disney, Finding Dory. With its titular content in the dark time of the American Presidential race, The Purge: Election Year (check out Loretta Sisco‘s review here) found its audience easily, but I think the big surprise this week may have been Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. Maybe the viewing public needed another comedy to lighten up the summer or maybe we’ve all underestimated the continuing pull of Zac Efron, but it came in fifth place with $16 million.
Sixth and seventh place went to comedy Central Intelligence and disappointing-to-some sequel Independence Day: Resurgence respectively. You can read our own Marie Gilbert‘s review of the latter flick here. The rest of the top ten included, in descending order – The BFG, summer shark entry The Shallows, and the Bollywood Olympic wrestling saga Sultan.
So, to recap, here were Biff Bam Pop’s predictions:
1) The Secret Life of Pets – $75 million
2) Finding Dory – $24 million
3) The Legend of Tarzan – $18 million
4) The Purge: Election Year – $12 million
5) The BFG – $10 million
And here’s how things really turned out:
1) The Secret Life of Plants – $103 million
2) The Legend of Tarzan – $20.6 million
3) Finding Dory – $20.3 million
4) Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates – $16.6 million
5) The Purge: Election Year – $11.7 million
This coming Friday sees the release of Bryan Cranston in The Infiltrator, Woody Allen’s Café Society, Kristen Stewart in Equals, French animated superhero Phantom Boy, and also a little remake/reboot you just might have heard of called Ghostbusters.
Check back here Friday for next week’s predictions, when Andy will be back.
