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‘Finding Dory’ Swims Into A Box Office Record, ‘The Conjuring 2’ Still Strong

By Nick Younker
Published on: 07:43 PST, Jun 20, 2016

A box office record has been achieved this weekend by the debut performance of the Disney and Pixar hit sequel, Finding Dory. Although it did not open up to the biggest numbers of all time, it did pull out a major victory over all of its competition and put up the strongest numbers ever for an animated film.

The $136.1 million opening at the box office by Finding Dory was enough to crush the competition this last weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. As matter of fact, the only movie that even came close to Finding Dory at the box office was the debut of the Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart comedy, Central Intelligence. It pulled in a modest $34.5 million at the box office, still etching out a commanding lead over the previous weekend’s reigning champion, The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist, which scored $15.5 million.

For those who have been following the box office performances of the major hit films this year, the box office receipts have been fairly weak in comparison to last year’s slew of record-breaking films that hit the theatrical circuit.

There have been a couple of films in particular that have been a bit of a disappointment for the studios at the box office. Both Warcraft and Now You See Me 2 have both debuted to underwhelming box office receipts, and the haul for this last weekend was poor, to say the least.

Warcraft pulled in a paltry $6.5 million in its second weekend, bringing its total box office haul up to $37.7 million. Now You See Me 2 has also disappointed in its second weekend as well, pulling in $9.6 million at the box office for a total run of $41 million. But it did pull ahead of Warcraft, which had it beat in the debut weekend.

But the real big story for this weekend was the record that Finding Dory broke at the box office, which was a 93 percent increase over its predecessor, Finding Nemo. It also seems to be cashing in on the success that Toy Story 3 found when it debuted so far away from its predecessor, which gave it over a 90 percent increase at the box office on its opening weekend.

But box office numbers like this are not rare for movies like Finding Dory. They are family movies that bring the whole family to the box office to buy tickets, as opposed to less family friendly films like The Conjuring 2. The more people in a family that come to the show, the more tickets that get sold, period.

Finding Dory had overwhelming odds to conquer at the box office to break that record, as well. In the category of G or PG rated films, it had some stiff competition from the past to overcome. That includes Shrek the Third ($121 million), Alice in Wonderland [2010] ($116 million), and Minions ($115 million).

Now, the next logical step would be to conquer the all-time box office record for a G rated film, which will not be an easy task. The Lion King reigns at the top of that list at $422 million, which is closely followed by Toy Story 3 at $415 million. Finding Dory will also have to achieve at least $380 million just to pass its predecessor, Finding Nemo, at the box office.

Next weekend is going to be a hard one for Finding Dory to make new ground. That’s because Independence Day: Resurgence will be making its grand debut at the box office, and there will be an overwhelming demand for that film. Free State of Jones also releases next weekend.

[Image via Disney/Pixar]

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