Animated ‘toons continue to make box office headlines around the world, led by Illumination Entertainment’s Despicable Me 2, which crossed the $800 million mark at the global box office this past weekend.
Animated ‘toons continue to make box office headlines around the world, led by Illumination Entertainment’s Despicable Me 2, which has now crossed the $800 million mark worldwide.
Despicable 2 made $10.9 million from 51 international markets over the weekend, bringing the animated sequel’s foreign total to $455.1 million. Combined with the film’s domestic earnings, Despicable Me 2 becomes just the seventh animated movie to earn over $800 million worldwide. With Italy, Japan and South Korea still on the way, there's a chance that the movie will ultimately close with over $900 million.
Meanwhile, Monsters University has quietly become one of Pixar's highest-grossing movies ever. The animated prequel added $19.6 million overseas this weekend, most of which came from a $13 million start in China and a $4.6 million debut in Italy. To date, the CG-animated feature has earned $424.8 million overseas, which ranks fourth all-time for the animation studio. Worldwide, it has grossed $686.6 million—fourth all-time for Pixar—and is reportedly on track will pass $700 million by next weekend.
Jurassic Park 3D expanded into China this week, earned $28.8 million through its first six days. To date, Jurassic Park 3D has earned $44.5 million overseas, which brings its worldwide total to $89.9 million.
Sony’s Elysium added $20 million this weekend, including a $4.78 million debut in the UK. To date, the Neil Blomkamp -directed sci-fi feature has taken in $70 million overseas. In the US, the feature made $7.1 million for a sixth place finish on the box office charts and a new domestic total of $69.1 million.
The Sony feature was beat out by Disney’s Planes, which came in fifth place on the domestic charts with $8.6 million for a total of $59.6 million.
Fox’s Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters came in eighth place domestically, taking in $5.2 million for a total of $48.3 million. Overseas, the film earned an additional $18.2 million for a foreign total of $62.1 million.
Sony’s The Smurfs 2 fell out of the top ten at the domestic box office, coming in at number 13 with $2.8 million; during the CG hybrid film’s four weeks at the North American box office it has brought in a total of $62.6 million.
Fox’s The Wolverine also sank, to 15th place, but the Hugh Jackman-starring film has now earned over $225 million overseas, which makes it the highest-grossing X-Men movie yet.
Box office numbers were obtained on boxofficemojo.com.
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
