Despicable Me 4 Opening Weekend Tops Box Office Despite Hitting 7-Year Franchise Low [Full Chart Update]

Summary Despicable Me 4 tops the box office during its opening weekend.

However, its debut gross is the lowest for the franchise since 2017's Despicable Me 3.

The movie nevertheless has the potential to become the third highest-grossing installment in the franchise.

Despicable Me 4 has opened at the middle of the box office pack for the franchise, hitting a seven-year low. The new Illumination animated movie is the latest installment in the franchise, which includes four movies in the flagship branch and two movies in the Minions subfranchise. The Despicable Me 4 release premiered midweek to take advantage of the Fourth of July holiday, bringing the continued story of Gru and his family to the screen earlier in the week than a typical Friday movie release.

Per Deadline, as of Sunday morning, Despicable Me 4 is on track to have a 5-day opening holiday weekend of $122.6 million after racking up $72.4 million at the domestic box office during its first three days in theaters. These projections put its regular Friday-to-Sunday 3-day total at roughly $75 million. That total, while enough to put the movie at No. 1 for the weekend, is the lowest opening for an installment in the franchise since 2017, when Despicable Me 3 opened to $72.4 million.

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Despicable Me 4 Shakes Up The Top 5 Chart

Two New Releases Made The Domestic Chart This Weekend

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By topping the box office chart in its debut, Despicable Me 4 has ended the reign of the year's previous animated hit, Pixar's Inside Out 2, which has held the No. 1 spot for three consecutive weekends since its debut on June 14 and already crossed the half-billion mark in North America alone. The rest of the Top 5 has seen quite a bit of movement over the holiday weekend, with the chart looking almost entirely different from the previous weekend. Below, see the full Top 5 chart at the domestic box office for the post-Fourth of July Friday-to-Sunday period:

# Title 3-Day Total Cumulative (Domestic) 1 Despicable Me 4 $75 million $122.6 million (weekend 1) 2 Inside Out 2 $33.1 million $536.9 million (weekend 4) 3 A Quiet Place: Day One $21 million $94.3 million (weekend 2) 4 Bad Boys: Ride or Die $6.77 million $177.5 million (weekend 5) 5 MaXXXine $6.7 million $6.7 million (weekend 1)

The other new release on the chart is the horror sequel MaXXXine, which is a follow-up to 2022's X and Pearl, at No. 5. While it has the highest opening weekend of the trilogy, the first installment opened at No. 4 while the second opened at No. 3, perhaps because of a lack of competition due to non-summer release dates and the pandemic-depressed box office. Meanwhile, A Quiet Place: Day One has slipped from No. 2 to No. 3 with a not-unusual 60% drop, while Bad Boys: Ride or Die maintained its hold on No. 4 during its fifth weekend.

Horror movies tend to have somewhat more severe drops than other genres during their second weekends in theaters.

The biggest movement in the current Top 5 comes from the two movies that were knocked off the chart by those new releases. The Indian sci-fi release Kalki 2898 AD dropped from No. 5 to No.8, which is not particularly unusual for an international title. Kevin Costner's post-Yellowstone Western movie Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 has also fallen three places from No. 3 to No. 6 with a 47% drop, which is a reasonably strong hold but only brings its cumulative total to $22.6 million, far short of its budget, which is roughly $50 million or more.

Where Will Despicable Me 4 Rank Among The Franchise Overall?

The Movie Has The Chance To Rise Up The Despicable Me Chart

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Overall, this opening weekend is the second-best result for the flagship franchise, but only the fourth-best of the overall franchise, including the Minions movies. While it's a somewhat lukewarm debut compared to the rest of the franchise, the fact that it has improved on the most recent installment in the same subfranchise could show that box office prospects are improving for the series overall. Below, see how the opening weekends and complete worldwide box office totals compare for all of the Despicable Me movies so far:

Title Opening Weekend Worldwide Box Office Despicable Me (2010) $56.4 million $543.2 million Despicable Me 2 (2013) $83.5 million $970.8 million Minions (2015) $115.7 million $1.16 billion Despicable Me 3 (2017) $72.4 million $1.03 billion Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) $107 million $940.2 million Despicable Me 4 (2024) $75 million TBD

Even if the new movie represents a dip after The Rise of Gru, every movie since the original has grossed more than $900 million, so it will likely hit that level. Nearly matching Despicable Me 3's opening could also be an asset, as that installment ranks as the second highest-grossing installment. It remains to be seen if the new movie can push past $1 billion, considering Minions 2's failure to do so despite a better opening, but if it shakes off the pandemic doldrums of 2022, it could potentially rise to become the No. 3 Despicable movie or better.

Despicable Me 4 reviews could also help bolster the movie's prospects. While it has the worst rating of all six movies among critics with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 53%, audiences have given it a record-breaking score of 90%, edging out Minions: The Rise of Gru's 89% to make it the highest-rated movie of the franchise among users of the review aggregator platform. This could indicate that the movie will be a word-of-mouth hit rather than a critical darling.

Source: Deadline