Several months back, I wrote a piece arguing that Finding Dory and Independence Day: Resurgence would be among the biggest movies of the summer (if not the year). The good news is that I'm probably about 50% right as of this morning. The Pixar sequel earned a whopping $54.95 million on its first day of release, including $9.2m worth of Thursday previews. It's already snagged a few significant records and may take a couple more by Sunday night.
The Thursday preview number was a record for an animated film, besting the $6.2 million preview total for Minions last year. And, yeah, the $54.95m Friday is also very much a record for the biggest single day for an animated feature. It bests the $46m opening day/biggest Friday for Minions as well as the $47m first Saturday of Shrek the Third.
Now if you want to be a jerk about it, the number would be the third-biggest animated single day behind the $44m Saturday of Shrek 2 (now around $61m) and the $47m Saturday of Shrek the Third (now around $58m) not accounting for the whole 3D bump. I'm sure Walt Disney and Pixar are all busted up about that, too.
You and I know both know "why" this opening weekend is going to be so huge. The film is a sequel to one of Pixar's most popular films. Finding Nemo is still Pixar's biggest "adjusted for inflation" hit ever, and it has remained one of their defining achievements. That means it's playing as much to people my age (who saw the original in college) as it is to younger kids who saw the original growing up (it was the first movie my daughter watched repeatedly) and those who are relatively new to its respective charms.
This is a multi-generational event as well as being a high quality family-centric animated film from a trusted company. The reviews were rock-solid to boot, with my "bending over backward to be fair" mixed positive ending up as one of the harsher ones out there. Ellen DeGeneres has a huge social media footprint, and she has a solid following among the very would-be moviegoers who find out about pop culture news through distinctly old-fashioned ways (talk shows magazines, etc.).
Angry Birds has played out, while Alice Through the Looking Glass and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows didn't connect. Family audiences (and everyone else, really) were ripe something that they really, really wanted to see. Oh, and the final trailer, which pulled on the heartstrings and reassured viewers that this wasn't another would-be Cars 2, sealed the deal. So yeah, this was a perfect storm of everything going right for all involved.
Now let's whip out the calculator and do some speculative math! The last several years' worth of Pixar summer openings (Toy Story 3, Cars 2, Brave, Monsters University, Inside Out) have been had multipliers between 2.6x and 2.71x. So assuming this isn't super front-loaded or unexpectedly leggy over the next two days, we're looking at a debut of between $143m and $148m.
Both of which would be way above the $121 million debut for Shrek the Third. A weekend similar to Minions ($46m Friday/$115m weekend) gets the film to $137.5m while a perilously frontloaded 2.4x (The Simpsons Movie) still gets it to $132m. Of note, playing the "adjusted for inflation" game, anything over $121m makes it the second biggest animated weekend (not accounting for the 3D bump) behind Shrek 2 ($149m) and Shrek the Third ($151m). We'll go into prospective domestic totals tomorrow, but I certainly expect this one to be leggier than Shrek the Third.
