1. The Secret Life of Pets 2 (review)- $47.1M/$48M
Talking dogs, cats, and bunnies bested the once-mighty X-Men at the box office, another shot to the groin of Marvel’s mutants. Illumination’s The Secret Life of Pets 2 opened with $48M, and while that’s good enough to win the week it’s a huge 54% drop from the hit 2016 movie which broke records for an original animated release that July weekend. The good news is it still only cost $80M and has made $97M worldwide, so it’s going to be just fine. However, it’s clear this isn’t going to be the next Despicable Me or Minions, and to be honest, it doesn’t deserve to be. The ‘Pets’ films are pretty forgettable, and it’s mainly our love for our canine and feline friends that gets us into theaters to see them.
2. Dark Phoenix (review)- $33M
As expected, Dark Phoenix opened with the lowest opening weekend of the twelve Fox X-Men movies. >sigh< I’ve said before, the negative buzz was baked in on this one due to the delays, expensive reshoots that boosted the budget to around $200M (!!!), a first time director in Simon Kinberg, and that we’ve already done this storyline once before. So much was working against this movie it never really stood a chance. And yet, it’s not a complete disaster. The movie is actually pretty good, don’t let the Rotten Tomatoes score fool you, and it has managed to grab an additional $107M overseas. It may still only top out at around $300M if lucky, and then it’s off to the scrapheap until Disney decides what to do with the X-Men next. Seeya in a few years, Wolvie.
3. Aladdin– $24.5M/$232.3M
4. Godzilla: King of the Monsters– $15.5M/$78.5M
The combo of pets and mutants did a number of the King of the Monsters. Godzilla 2 fell a crushing 67% from last week, and now sits at $292M worldwide.
5. Rocketman– $14M/$50.4M
6. Ma– $7.8M/$32.7M
7. John Wick: Chapter 3-Parabellum– $7.4M/$138.6M
8. Avengers: Endgame– $4.8M/$824.3M
9. Pokemon Detective Pikachu– $2.9M/$137.4M
10. Booksmart– $1.5M/$17.8M
