With a soft $23 million, “DC League of Super-Pets” debuts in 1st place.

DC League of Super-Pets, an animated adventure about superheroes’ furry friends, debuted at the top of the domestic box office with $23 million from 4,313 cinemas. 

Despite outperforming Jordan Peele’s Nope in North American charts with ticket sales, the $90 million Warner Bros. film is off to a middling start. The Legion of Super-Pets may not be as well known as Superman or Aquaman, but considering its connection to DC Comics and its impressive voice cast, which includes Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, DC League of Super-Pets might have connected with viewers a little more.

DC League of Super-Pets is another family-friendly movie that has struggled to impress audiences upon release. Family audiences have traditionally been a stable source of cash, therefore the recent slate of family-targeted movies has been mixed. DC League of Super-Pets trailed Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru and Pixar’s Lightyear in terms of opening weekend box office receipts. Lightyear opened to $51 million and $107 million, respectively. However, its opening weekend was comparable to other family movies from the pandemic era including The Bad Guys ($23.9 million), Sing 2 ($22.3 million), and Disney’s Encanto ($27 million).

DC League of Super-Pets, on the other hand, doesn’t appear to be facing much competition, which might be to its favor. The fact that viewers enjoyed the movie, earning it a “A-” CinemaScore, helps.

 

According to the opening of an animated series, David A. Gross, the head of the movie consulting company Franchise Entertainment Research, observed, “This is a middling opening.” Recently, a number of animated films have extended to six-week runs, bringing in a respectable domestic multiple.

 

Although some animated films have a slower start, several have displayed strong endurance at the box office, as Gross points out. For instance, The Bad Guys and Encanto both finished their theatrical runs in North America with $96 million each. Additionally, “Sing 2” had very lengthy legs because it ended with $162 million.

 

The other new nationwide release this weekend is B.J. Vengeance, Novak’s dark comedy inspired by true crimes, barely made it into the top 10. The R-rated movie performed as expected in its opening weekend, bringing in a meager $1.75 million from 998 theaters. In the movie, which he also wrote, Novak plays a podcaster and journalist from New York City who goes to Texas to look into the murder of a woman he was only briefly dating. Men made up 55% of ticket buyers for the well-reviewed Vengeance, which attracted largely male viewers and received a “B+” CinemaScore.

 

The weekend was handily won by DC League of Super-Pets, while Nope fell to second place with $18.5 million from 3,807 venues. The Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer-led UFO thriller has so far made $80.5 million in North America.

 

Disney’s Thor: Love and Thunder took the No. 3 spot with $13.1 million from 3,650 locations in its fourth weekend in theaters. Those ticket sales push the Marvel adventure past $300 million at the domestic box office, with its current tally at $301 million. Internationally, the fourth Thor movie has grossed $361 million, which brings its global tally to $662 million.

 

Minions: The Rise of Gru landed in fourth place, bringing in $10.8 million from 3,578 cinemas in its fifth outing. The latest Despicable Me installment has been one of the few kid-friendly success stories at the pandemic box office, with ticket sales at $320 million in North America and $710 million worldwide.

 

Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick rounded out the top five with $8.2 million in its 10th weekend of release. After two months on the big screen, Tom Cruise’s blockbuster has grossed $650 million at the domestic box office and has managed to stay in the top five on weekend charts since Memorial Day weekend. Sometime soon, it’ll surpass Titanic ($659 million) and Jurassic World ($653 million) to become the seventh-highest grossing movie in domestic box office history.

Elsewhere, A24’s multiverse adventure Everything Everywhere All at Once has cleared a major box office milestone, crossing $100 million in global ticket sales. It’s the first A24 movie to hit that box office benchmark. The film, which was re-released in domestic theaters over the weekend, has become a sleeper hit, earning $68.9 million in the United States and another $31.1 million internationally.