All the talk of bad review and criticism came to nothing as “Despicable Me 3” ruled the American box office last weekend with commendable numbers. With a Rotten Tomato score of 63% one would have expected that the movie would have made average returns in its opening weekend. However, the movie grossed a whopping $75.4 million in the U.S. and Canada alone over the weekend clearly surmounting the expectations of critics.
Though, Illumination Entertainment who is responsible for the production of the hit animation series would not be too happy with the returns as it falls short of their projection of profits between $85-million to $100-million. But the film house with not be too sad either as the numbers are not too far away from that projection.
The production house have been praised for their ability to generate maximum result from minimum cost as most of their movies have grossed 10 times the money spent in Production. For instance, “Despicable me 3” cost the film house $75 million to produce and given the weekend sales they have already made the money back.
The movie, which has also grossed $116.9 million to date internationally, is helped by its incredible family viewership. The movie got a 69% A-minus CinemaScore rating generated from households who viewed and enjoyed the animation movie.
The movie is however not the only winner in the box office over the weekend as TriStar Pictures movie “Baby Driver” also brought in incredible numbers over the weekend. The movie came in second behind “despicable me 3” as it grossed $21 million over the weekend. A figure well above the movie house projection of $15 million. Coming in at third place is Paramount Pictures flick “Transformers: The Last Knight” which brought in $17 million over the weekend to the delight of its production team.
Coming from a week of bad review and “parent trap” claims by different movie critics “despicable me 3” seems to be breaking new grounds in a well crowded animation industry consisting of various giants such as Pixar and DreamWorks. Illumination production has showed that sticking to the familiar can generate favourable returns in the long run.