'Minions' Tops 'Toy Story 3' for Second Biggest Animated Opening Ever
Move over, Woody and Buzz, "Minions" is ready to surpass infinity (and beyond!) at the box office. According to Variety, the "Despicable Me" spinoff made $115.2 million in North America over the weekend, which is the second biggest animated film opening in history. That begs the question of who is first, and it's "Shrek the Third" with $121.6 million in 2007. As Entertainment Weekly noted, "Minions" is only the fourth animated movie ever to break $100 million in its opening weekend, and this debut replaces "Toy Story 3" in second place, with $110.3 million, also pushing back "Shrek 2's" $108 million.
EW also added this praise:
Another big accomplishment? Minions is only the fourth film this year to crack $100 million. Even more impressively, three of those four have been from Universal. (Furious 7 and Jurassic World are both Universal films, and Avengers: Age of Ultron was released by Disney.)
Impressive! It's also impressive to note that "Minions" "only" cost $74 million to produce, which is low compared to the north-of-$100-million budgets from Pixar and DreamWorks Animation. "I'm not sure the public is mindful of what films cost; they're more concerned with how they resonate," Nick Carpou, Universal's domestic distribution chief, told Variety. "Chris [Meledandri] is able to produce films that speak to families, to children, to people everywhere."
Are you surprised to see that "Minions" did so well, or are you more surprised that it still didn't top "Shrek the Third"?
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