Box Office: ‘Despicable Me 4’ Dominates July 4th with $122M Opening, ‘MaXXXine’ Brings in $6.7M.
Illumination and Universal’s Minions franchise continues to thrive as Despicable Me 4 commanded the Fourth of July box office with an estimated five-day domestic opening of $122.6 million from 4,428 theaters. This includes a robust three-day weekend haul of $75 million, accompanied by an impressive A CinemaScore.
This strong debut aligns with expectations and signifies a solid start for the fourth installment in the main Despicable Me series, and the sixth film in the Despicable Me/Minions franchise, the highest-grossing animated franchise of all time. Internationally, the latest movie has amassed $230 million.
The original Despicable Me launched in July 2010 with a domestic opening of $56 million. The franchise later became a Fourth of July staple, with Despicable Me 2 opening on July 3, 2013, to a five-day debut of $143 million, and Despicable Me 3 earning $120 million over the holiday weekend in 2017.
For the three-day weekend, Despicable Me 4’s $75 million gross marks the highest July 4 opener since Illumination’s Minions: The Rise of Gru earned $107 million in 2022, and the third-best of all time behind Gru and the $83 million earned by Despicable Me 2 in 2017.
In Despicable Me 4, Gru, voiced by Steve Carell, returns as the world’s favorite supervillain turned Anti-Villain League agent. Alongside Lucy (Kristen Wiig) and their daughters (Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, and Madison Pola), they welcome a new son, Gru Jr. (Tara Strong), who brings new chaos. The family goes on the run after clashing with a new nemesis voiced by Will Ferrell and his femme-fatale partner (Sofía Vergara). The film also features voices from Joey King, Stephen Colbert, and Chloe Fineman, with Pierre Coffin returning as the voice of the Minions and Steve Coogan as Silas Ramsbottom.
Directed by Minions co-creator Chris Renaud, with a script by Mike White and Despicable Me veteran Ken Daurio, the movie was co-directed by Patrick Delage and produced by Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri alongside Brett Hoffman.
Despicable Me 4 marks a second consecutive win for the animated family market following Pixar and Disney’s Inside Out 2, which fell to No. 2 in its fourth weekend with a three-day weekend gross of $30 million from 3,760 locations. Domestically, Inside Out 2 has grossed $533.8 million, the third-highest for an animated film in North America, not adjusted for inflation. Globally, it joined the billion-dollar club in record time, taking 19 days to reach the milestone. This weekend, it surpassed Minions to rank No. 5 on the global top-grossing animated films list with $1.217 billion.
Inside Out 2 leads a surge of June releases, contributing to a significant box office rebound. Domestic box office revenue, which was down 23 percent last year, has now narrowed the deficit to 17 percent, according to Comscore.
Another film aiding the mini-boom is Paramount’s A Quiet Place: Day One, holding at No. 3 in its second weekend with a three-day gross of $21 million, reaching a 10-day domestic total of $94.4 million. The prequel had the loudest three-day debut of the series last weekend, opening to $52 million.
A24’s specialty film MaXXXine, which opened on Friday, placed No. 4 with an estimated $6.7 million from 2,450 cinemas. This is a decent start for a specialty slasher film with a hard R-rating. MaXXXine, the final installment in Ti West’s trilogy starring Mia Goth, is an ode to 1980s sexploitation and horror, earning a B CinemaScore.
Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die remained strong in its fifth week, placing No. 5 with $6.6 million from 2,664 sites, bringing its domestic total to $177.4 million. There’s a chance it could swap places with MaXXXine when final weekend grosses are tallied.
Kevin Costner’s big-budget Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter One fell to No. 6, struggling to find its audience. The $100 million period Western dropped 50 percent in its second weekend to roughly $5.5 million from 3,325 theaters, reaching a domestic total of $22.2 million. Warner Bros. has yet to comment on how this performance might impact the sequel set to open in August.
Last year, Angel Studios made headlines with Sound of Freedom, which opened to $14.2 million on July 4, topping the chart and outperforming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. By the end of the holiday period, its domestic tally exceeded $41 million. However, this year’s Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot hasn’t replicated that success. The inspirational drama, about a family that adopts 22 children, opened on July 4, earning $4.7 million over Wednesday and Thursday, according to Angel Studios. For the weekend, it earned $3.6 million, placing No. 9, according to Comscore.
