Following Toy Story 5's record-breaking opening last month, another long-running animated franchise, Illumination's Minions & Monsters, is falling short of expectations at the North American box office.
The movie is eyeing a 5-day $63.5 million start, which is a far cry from its expected $80 million debut.
The long Independence Day weekend is always a bit of a box office anomaly, and the latest Minions movie is on track for a so-so $38.5 million 3-day haul. This marks both the lowest 5-day and 3-day debut for a movie in the Minions or Despicable Me franchises, suggesting the novelty might be wearing off with these characters.
This marks the third time Illumination has opened one of these movies over the July 4 weekend. However, 2013's Despicable Me 2 ($143 million), 2024's Despicable Me 4 ($122.6 million), and 2022's Minions: The Rise of Gru ($123 million) all performed considerably better.
Back to Toy Story 5, it moves to second place with an estimated $30 million 3-day weekend, taking its domestic cume to $365.3 million by Sunday. In third place is Angel Studios' Young Washington, which is beating expectations with a projected $16 million to $17 million weekend.
Then, in fourth, we have DC Studios' Supergirl. Things are not looking up for the movie, which will gross $10 million this weekend, a colossal 73% drop from its opening. That's not as bad as Joker: Folie à Deux's 81% decline, but it is in the same ballpark as The Flash, which stumbled at the box office, despite James Gunn's promise that it was among the greatest movies ever made.
By Sunday, it will have reached $48.8 million in the U.S., making it one of the biggest superhero movie box office flops in recent memory. At a time when superheroes are no longer untouchable in theaters, blockbusters like this and Captain America: Brave New World do the genre no favours.
Rounding out the top five is Disclosure Day, with an estimated $5.6 million weekend for a running cume by Sunday of $104.8 million.
"Bad writing, gratuitous cameos, and uninspired visuals take us back to the bad old days of the DCEU in Supergirl, a showcase for the super-talented Milly Alcock, but Kryptonite to anyone who likes good superhero movies," we wrote in one of our reviews.
In another, ComicBookMovie.com owner Nate Best had a different take, writing, "For me, it's a 7 out of 10. Call it a 6 if you want me to be stricter, and fair warning, I'm an easy grader. The only superhero movie I've ever genuinely wanted to walk out of was Thor: Love and Thunder, and Supergirl isn't remotely in that conversation. It's a fun comic-book movie, and some nights that's exactly enough."
What are you heading to theaters to watch this July 4 weekend?