‘Despicable Me 4’ tops Fourth of July weekend with $122 million

The Minions are back — and as lucrative as ever.

After getting off to a rocky start, the summer box office is roaring back to life with the help of a few family-friendly animated titles. Over the five-day Fourth of July weekend, Despicable Me 4 opened to a whopping $122 million domestically, including a three-day weekend haul of $75 million, Comscore reports. 

The film’s box office success should come as no surprise to those familiar with the supervillain-turned-superspy Gru (Steve Carell) and his army of adorable yellow henchmen. In a mere 12 years, Illumination’s Despicable Me series has become so beloved that it ranks among the highest-grossing animated franchises of all time. In addition to its U.S. earnings, the movie continued a successful overseas rollout, collecting another $148 million for a global cume of $230 million.

Speaking of successful animated franchises, Inside Out 2 is in the midst of a historic box office run. Four weeks in, the star-studded Pixar sequel picked up another $30 million, bringing its domestic total to $533.8 million.

Last weekend, the film joined the billion-dollar club in global ticket sales, making it the animated film that most quickly crossed $1 billion and the first film to do so in 2024. This weekend it surpassed Minions to rank No. 5 on the list of the highest-grossing animated films, now with a cume of $1.217 billion.

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A far less family-friendly entry snagged third place: A Quiet Place: Day One continues the John Krasinkski–created franchise with a prequel film, starring Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, and the world’s quietest cat. The thriller about navigating New York City amid an invasion of aliens with ultra-sensitive hearing dropped 60 percent from last week, for a haul of $21 million. Globally, Day One sits at $178 million, and it triumphed over the weekend’s horror debut, MaXXXine.

The third entry in Ti West’s X saga, MaXXXine opened in fourth place to an estimated $6.7 million and $7.8 million globally. The slasher pic continues the story of Mia Goth’s Maxine, introduced in 2022’s X, as she attempts to break big in Hollywood after getting her start as an adult film actress. Unfortunately, a mysterious killer is stalking the starlets of Los Angeles, and the secrets of her past are at risk of being exposed.

Ahead of its release, West told Entertainment Weekly that MaXXXine would be a “substantially bigger” film than X or Pearl, as it comprises the stories of a “sprawling Los Angeles ensemble.” While each of the movies pay homage to the horror genre, and have thus taken cues from its classic tropes, West said fans should prepare for a couple of bloody twists along the way.

“It’s going to zig instead of zag in a lot of places that people aren’t expecting,” he said. “It’s a very decadent world that [Maxine] lives in, and it’s a very aggressive world that she lives in, but the threat shows up in an unexpected way.”

Coming in fifth is Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which reunites Will Smith and Martin Lawrence for yet another high-octane adventure. This past week, the action-comedy grossed $6.5 million, bringing its domestic cume to $177.3 million and its global cume to $360 million.