With Illumination/Universal’s Minions: The Rise Of Gru continuing its dastardly ways at the global box office, the origins story has propelled the Despicable Me franchise across the $4B mark worldwide. The Chris Meledandri-produced series was already the biggest animated franchise of all time, and now has another milestone to boot. Across all five films, the total is $4.012B. Bananas!
Overall, the origins story has had strong offshore midweek performances, adding $14.9M on Wednesday and reaching an overseas cume of $134.6M, which is 11% below the first film at the same point in the same markets. It’s also 2% above Despicable Me 3. The domestic cume through Wednesday is $154.2M. That lifts global to $288.8M.
The Rise Of Gru opened early in Australia two weeks ago and this past frame added 60 overseas markets, setting some new milestones including four markets that scored the biggest animation opening weekend of all time
France, a ke y hub, just opened yesterday and had a $2.1M debut from 505K admissions (that’s excluding previews; when adding the sneaks it’s 605K admissions) bringing the cume to $2.7M. This is the biggest Illumination animation opening day of all time, ahead of Minions, and the 3rd biggest animation opening day of all time (after only Incredibles 2 and Ice Age 3).
Elsewhere, Belgium opened on Wednesday to $139K to hit Universal and Illumination’s 3rd biggest animation opening behind Minions and Secret Life of Pets. An extensive previews program that started on June 29th had already banked $600K, bringing the running total to $700K, which is above all previous franchise comps at the same point except for Minions (-13%).
In holdovers, the UK is at $16.2M through Wednesday. Gru and the crew are No.1 in the market. Wednesday’s result was ahead of the same day for Minions (+38%), and DM3 (+36%).
Australia also had great midweeks, with uplift of 18% from last Wednesday despite Thor: Love And Thunder entering the market. The film has reached a $16.1M cume to date.
Mexico’s cume is $16.4M through Wednesday. School holidays do not begin until July 28.
Spain was the top holdover market on Wednesday, adding $1.6M for a cume to date of $6.3M. It is the clear No.1 title in the market.
Bob & co travel to Japan on July 15, Korea on July 20 and Italy on July 18.