‘Secret Life of Pets’ debuts to massive $ 103.2 million

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com): ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ dominated the weekend box office, racking up a massive $ 103.2 million and launching the first new franchise of the summer.

Its success is a feather in the cap for Illumination chief Chris Meledandri, confirming his status among the ranks of animation giants. The family film, which explores what dogs, cats, and other animal companions do while their owners are busy at work, cost an economical $ 75 million to produce, roughly half of what most studios spend making animated films. Universal is backing the film, which launched across 4,370 locations.

‘The Secret Life of Pets’ easily supplanted Disney and Pixar’s ‘Finding Dory’ from first place on the box office charts – it has topped rankings for the three prior weeks. The sequel to ‘Finding Nemo’ slid to second place with north of $ 20 million, having made more than $ 422 million to become the highest grossing film of the year on a domestic basis, lapping ‘Captain America: Civil War’. It also ranks as the highest grossing animated film domestically, unseating ‘Toy Story 3’.

The weekend’s other new release, Fox’s ‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates’ opened to $ 16.6 million at 2,982 sites for a fourth place finish. The comedy about a pair of party animal brothers (Zac Efron and Adam DeVine) who enlist two women (Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza) to accompany them to their sister’s wedding, cost $ 33 million to make. Chernin Entertainment produced the film.

‘Pets’ will post the sixth-best opening of 2016 following ‘Captain America: Civil War’, ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’, ‘Finding Dory’, ‘Deadpool’ and ‘The Jungle Book’ – all members of the elite group of 39 titles that have opened with more than $ 100 million domestically. It’s also a new opening weekend domestic record for an original animated film, topping the $ 90.4 million launch of ‘Inside Out’ last summer.

The ‘Pets’ voice cast includes Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Ellie Kemper, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Hannibal Buress, Bobby Moynihan, Steve Coogan and Albert Brooks. 

‘Despicable Me’s’ Chris Renaud directs and Yarrow Cheney co-directs from a script by Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio and Brian Lynch.

‘Pets’ is the biggest opening of the year for Universal, which has struggled to replicate last year’s record-annihilating results. It’s also another success for Illumination, which opened ‘Minions’ a year ago with $ 115 million on its way to a $ 336 million domestic total and $ 1.16 billion worldwide. 

Comcast, Universal’s parent company, is betting heavily in the animation space. It has a deal in place to buy DreamWorks Animation for $ 4.1 billion, with the hopes of challenging Disney’s dominance of the family film genre. 

Meledandri’s role is unclear – Universal backs Illumination – but Jeff Shell, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, has said he hopes that he will be the studio’s equivalent of John Lasseter, the creative guru at Pixar.

In fourth place, Warner Bros.’ ‘The Legend of Tarzan’ picked up $ 20.6 million, bringing its stateside total to $ 81.4 million. Universal’s ‘The Purge: Election Year’ rounded out the top five, adding $ 11.7 million to its $ 58.1 million domestic haul.