After a rough start to the summer, we can finally say with some confidence that the box office slump is over – at least for the time being. Pixar’s sequel, Inside Out 2, blew away industry expectations (including ours) to post the second-biggest animated opening of all time, just behind The Incredibles 2, which opened with $182.6 million. With a $155 million domestic opening, it’s by far the biggest opening of the year and marks a strong return to form for Pixar Studios, who’ve suffered through a series of embarrassing flops since the pandemic decimated their release schedule. With an A CinemaScore rating, word-of-mouth on this one should be great, with it looking like it’ll do strong business over the next two weekends, with very little in the way of competition until Despicable Me 4 on the July 4th holiday weekend.

Another success story this weekend is Bad Boys: Ride or Die, with the film having a fantastic hold with the $33 million weekend, only a 42% dip, which is an amazing result, with the film posting a strong $112 million domestic total. Will it pass $200 million domestically and $400-500 million internationally? We’ll have to wait and see, but clearly, this (rather good) franchise still has a lot of life left in it.

Meanwhile, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes leapfrogged over its competition last weekend to take the third place spot, with a $5.2 million weekend and a $157 million domestic total. That’s a solid result, with it looking like Disney/ 20th Century Studios will be continuing the franchise in some fashion, with it actually out-grossing the last film in the saga, War for the Planet of the Apes.

Due to Inside Out 2 eating up the family audiences, both The Garfield Movie and John Krasinski’s IF posted big declines this weekend. The Garfield Movie made $5 million, with the $78 million domestic tally making it clear that the animated movie won’t cross $100 million domestically. IF, which overcame terrible reviews, has proved to be a word-of-mouth hit, with it making $3.45 million in sixth place, and officially crossing $100 million domestically.

Ishana Night Shyamalan’s The Watchers slipped to fifth place, with a $3.65 million weekend and a $13 million total. This one won’t crack $20 million domestically, which is undoubtedly disappointing for distributor Warner Bros. The studio’s had bad luck this summer (after having huge hits with Dune: Part 2 and Godzilla x Kong this winter and spring), with Furiosa only making $2.42 million this weekend with a terrible $63 million total. This one seems likely to finish under $75 million domestically and will likely be sent to PVOD within a few weeks.

Speaking of VOD, Universal’s The Fall Guy added another $1.5 million to its coffers this weekend despite being available digitally. With a $87 million total, it should manage to cross $90 million domestically, but it will finish short of $100 million by the end of its run. Renny Harlin’s The Strangers: Chapter 1, which also recently hit VOD, made another $ 760k this weekend for ninth place, with the $33 million domestically total very strong for the first entry in Lionsgate’s already shot trilogy. The top 10 was rounded out by the re-release of The Fellowship of the Ring, which made $632k this weekend, which is impressive if you consider many theatres are only showing it once or twice a day.

Do you think the upward trend at the box office is going to continue over the next few weeks? Let us know in the comments! 

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