The Minions helped Despicable Me 2 to a big weekend at the box office for the Fourth of July holiday.
The sequel from Universal claimed the top spot with a massive $82.5 million for the weekend and $142.1 million for the five-day holiday period. Despicable Me 2 isn’t quite as good as the first film, but everybody’s favorite Minions take front and center making the sequel very enjoyable.
While Despicable Me 2 had a huge weekend, last weekend’s other big release, Disney’s The Lone Ranger, bombed. The crew behind the Pirates of the Caribbean films (director Gore Verbinski, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Johnny Depp) couldn’t do it again, as their western took in only $29.4 million for the weekend and $48.9 million since Wednesday. The Lone Ranger is long, too inconsistent, but does feature an amazing final sequence.
The only other new release last weekend was Summit Entertainment’s stand-up comedian Kevin Hart’s documentary Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain, which debuted $10.1 million for the weekend and $17.5 million over the five days.
With July now under way, it will be interesting to see if it can continue the box office’s record-setting ways. May set a new record and June became the highest-grossing month ever outside of July and the fifth-biggest of all-time with its $1.25 billion haul.
Rounding out the top five for the weekend was The Heat ($25 million), Monsters University ($19.6 million) and World War Z ($18.2 million).
This weekend’s major releases include Guillermo del Toro’s giant-robots-vs.-giant-monsters epic Pacific Rim and the Adam Sandler-starring Grown Ups 2.