Even with wildly positive reviews and solid buzz, Edgar Wright's Baby Driver couldn't quite overcome the popularity of those Minions. But despite Despicable Me 3 arriving top of the US box office, Driver still made a solid showing in second.
The third outing for the Despicable franchise brought in the family crowd to the tune of $75.4 million, according to studio estimates. Not perhaps the best showing when compared to its sequel stablemates, but certainly not bad given the relatively lower budgets that Illumination works with. And the series shows no sign of showing down, with a sequel to spin-off Minions due in 2020.
Baby Driver, meanwhile, raced off with $21 million and will hopefully show some staying power as the summer competition heats up. Worldwide, the film is up to $36.8 million. The new placements meant that Transformers: The Last Knight, already underperforming at the American box office, was pushed down to third on $17 million, though the movie has crossed the $100 million mark in the States. Fourth was Wonder Woman, which recently passed Batman V Superman to become the highest-grossing DC title in terms of domestic earnings. The movie added $16.1 million for a running US total of 346.6 million. Rounding out the top five was Cars 3, which made $9.5 million.
New comedy The House looks set to lose its shirt a little, earning just $9 million on its opening weekend. It'll likely need to hope for more cash from overseas audiences, though so far the response hasn't exactly been huge. Shark thriller 47 Meters Down sank a few places to seventh on $4.6 million, while Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled expanded its release and earned $3.2 million in eighth place.
The Mummy fell from fifth to ninth, taking home $2.7 million in the process, while Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Or Salazar's Revenge If You're In The UK How Many Times Do We Have To Keep Writing This One was 10th with $2.4 million.
[Despicable Me 3 Review