“The Secret Life of Pets” Pounces on the Competition

Never underestimate the power of adorable animated animals. It's now been a straight month since a live-action movie starring humans has held the top spot. The Secret Life of Pets was always expected to win the weekend, but not to be this big. $103.1 million is a massive opening for a non-sequel, especially one that doesn't hail from Disney. That's the second biggest animated opening this year, even bigger than The Angry Birds Movie or Zootopia.

The Legend of Tarzan held decently after debuting strongly last weekend, far better than its competition. It should cross $100 million by next weekend, but that's not so hot considering its hefty price tag and so-so international returns thus far – though it still has several major territories to open in. The Purge: Election Year fell much harder.

Finding Dory dropped to No. 3, but became the highest-grossing movie of 2016. Its just a few bucks shy of the No. 2 animated movie of all time (The Lion King) and will definitely unseat Shrek 2 before the end of the summer. In its fourth weekend, that was still enough to hold off Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. The raunchy comedy had an OK debut, but didn't cost that much to make. Fox can consider that a win.

Outside the top 5:

• This Weekend's Indie Champ: Captain Fantastic, the family dramedy starring Viggo Mortensen. The second feature from Silicon Valley's Matt Ross averaged $24,613 on its four screens.
• Sultan, a wrestling drama from India, debuted at No. 10 with $2.2 million. Let this serve as a semi-annual reminder that there's a majorly underserved Indian audience in America.
• Here is the complete list of Steven Spielberg movies that have made less than The BFG: 1941, Empire of the Sun and his theatrical debut The Sugarland Express. That's it. Even Always, his maligned remake of A Guy Named Joe, has earned more money at this point. And it was hardly a major blockbuster. It will probably end up making more than Munich ($47.4 million), but won't even come close to Bridge of Spies ($72.3 million), which isn't even in his top 20. And that's even before you adjust for ticket price inflation. Doing that puts The BFG at the very bottom.

Next week:

It's do-or-die as the most talked-about movie (on the internet, at least) finally sees the light of day: Paul Feig's female-centric reboot of Ghostbusters. It's really hard to tell exactly how big it will debut. There are plenty of foul men online who are already refusing to see the film on "principle," but those guys are few and far between. The more pressing question will be: How many people want to see a reboot of the original film period? This year has proven that there's not a big appetite for a lot of sequels, or at least not as big as there used to be. So I'll hedge my bets and say this will be the biggest debut yet for both director Paul Feig and star Melissa McCarthy with around $55 million. Unfortunately, that won't be enough to unseat The Secret Life of Pets, which will stay No. 1 with around $60 million.