Weekend Box Office: ‘Finding Dory’ Makes Waves

Finding Dory made waves this weekend by not only dominating the weekend box office, but also seizing the highest opening ever for an animated film. The film amassed $136.2 in its opening weekend, handily knocking Shrek The Third’s opening of $121.6 million off the pedestal for the top spot. Finding Dory simply obliterated the weekend’s competition as well, with action-comedy Central Intelligence coming in second at $34.5 million, and horror flick The Conjuring 2 following with $15.6 million.

This smashing debut comes on the heels of Zootopia, another major victory for Disney-Pixar. Zootopia managed to rake in $75.1 million in its opening weekend–an exceptionally strong number for an original feature. With respect to Pixar in particular, Finding Dory follows the similarly stunning success of Inside Out, along with the somewhat paltrier opening of The Good Dinosaur. When counting in the non-animated features, this will be the eleventh weekend straight of domination for The Walt Disney Company at the box office. Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Marvel have come together in recent weeks to form a nearly unstoppable entertainment empire. All in all, this weekend’s box office comes as just another reason for those at The Walt Disney Company to celebrate their recent good fortune.

Finding Dory had no trouble winning over both critical and general audiences. The film critics of Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an incredible 94% approval rating, a fortuitous match for the similarly excellent “A” score awarded by audiences in CinemaScore theater exit polls. This doubtlessly bolstered the nostalgia-induced hype of the eagerly awaited sequel. These unarguably high ratings also provide peace of mind for those anxious that Pixar is falling into the disappointing sequel trap that has gripped much of Hollywood.

Edited by: Morgan Stradling