The Secret Life Of Pets tops the United States box office

While animated features have become more surefire audience draws than superhero flicks in 2016, not all of them fared well.

The Universal and Illumination Entertainment animated film, which gives a glimpse into what pets do when their owners aren’t around, vastly exceeded industry predictions that it would open to about $60 million.

According to Box Office Mojo, Pets took in a whopping $103.17 million. In the United States alone, Americans are expected to spend more than $62 billion in 2016 on their pets.

Finding Dory, which had topped the box-office chart for three consecutive weekends, took in $20.4 million from 4,085 locations. For all the box office numbers from this weekend, click on the link below. While that’s good news for Alexander Skarsgård and Margot Robbie, who should get a nice bump from the the film’s success, it still likely won’t be enough to make the $180 million-budgeted behemoth profitable for Warner Bros. Secret Life of Pets, an original, non-sequel, non Disney, film about pets in NY never really stood a chance.

“I think this movie resonates among all people”, said Nick Carpou, Universal’s president of domestic distribution. The trailer for the film played before “Minions”, hooking younger audiences, and has played before half the movies in Hollywood since. “It’s a relatable concept, and a great escape”.

A quick open also allows a theme park attraction to serve as a bridge between an initial film in a franchise and its sequel – keeping that buzz going. Still, this is a solid opening for Mike and Dave, since the $33 million wasn’t projected to do almost this well in initial estimates prior to release. Chernin Entertainment produced the film, which delivered plenty of males (48 percent).

The Legend of Tarzan swings into a distant second place with $20.6 million (GBP15.9 million), while Finding Dory falls to third with $20.4 million (GBP15.75 million). The $42.6 million worldwide gross brings the global total to $145.8 million so far, eclipsing the film’s $75 million budget. To date, it’s performed best in Russian Federation ($6.3 million). CMCSA stock popped at the end of last week on news that Pets had brought in $5.3 million in early Thursday showings. It’s also the top-grossing Pixar movie ever, Disney’s highest-grossing animated movie (besting “The Lion King”), and the third-biggest cartoon of all time (and sure to surpass the animation champ, $441.2 million-grossing “Shrek 2”, in a few days). “Dory” has grossed $422.5 million thus far, overtaking the $415 million gross of “Toy Story 3” as Pixar’s biggest movie domestically.