Despite the seemingly uninterested reaction of the public to Disney/Pixar’s Cars 3, it still managed to come out on top in its first weekend at the box office. Lightning McQueen and pals raced into first place with an estimated $53.5 million domestically, and $74.8 million worldwide.
While Disney will be happy with their #1 opening, this is the Cars franchise lowest domestic opening of all time, behind the $60.1 million Cars reeled in in 2006 and the $66.1 million achieved by Cars 2 in 2011. It’s also one of Pixar’s lowest opening weekends, with only The Good Dinosaur and its $39.1 million domestic opening fairing worse.
The film cost around $175 million, and while it will likely make Disney a profit, perhaps it’s a sign that the collective shrug Disney received when it announced a third instalment of its four-wheeled franchise was an indication that fans are a little tired of the series.
In other box office news, Wonder Woman continues her powerful run by lassoing in another $40.7 million domestically to retain a strong second place. Patty Jenkins‘ film now has a worldwide total of $571.8 million.
Opening in third place domestically was the Tupac Shakur documentary All Eyez On Me, which performed well above expectations to pull in $27 million. The Tom Cruise actioner The Mummy dropped 56% following abysmal reviews to draw $13.9 million and secure fourth place, while fifth place was taken by shark thriller 47 Meters Down with an $11.5 million opening.
One especially poor performer was Rough Night, the boozy comedy which stars Scarlett Johansson, which finished in a disappointing seventh place with a rough opening of only $8 million.
Next week is the debut of Michael Bay‘s Transformers: The Last Knight, which is naturally expected to have a big opening worldwide, so it’ll be interesting to see how Cars 3 fares against that and whether Wonder Woman can keep up its extremely impressive box office run.
#Peace.Love.Cars3
