UPDATE: 2025-08-14 08:06 EST BY BRENNAN KLEIN
Despicable Me 4 Looks At Higher-Than-Expected $122.6 Million Opening
This article was originally written Saturday AM and has been updated Sunday AM with altered box office projections (in bold), a full chart, and further analysis.
Summary
Despicable Me 4has opened at the middle of the box office pack for the franchise, hitting a seven-year low. The new Illumination animated movie is the latest installment in the franchise, which includes four movies in the flagship branch and two movies in theMinionssubfranchise. TheDespicable Me 4releasepremiered midweek to take advantage of the Fourth of July holiday, bringing the continued story of Gru and his family to the screen earlier in the week than a typical Friday movie release.
PerDeadline, as of Sunday morning,Despicable Me 4is on track to have a 5-day opening holiday weekend of$122.6 millionafter racking up $72.4 million at the domestic box office during its first three days in theaters. These projections put its regular Friday-to-Sunday 3-day total at roughly$75 million. That total, while enough to put the movie at No. 1 for the weekend, isthe lowest opening for an installment in the franchise since 2017,whenDespicable Me 3opened to $72.4 million.
Despicable Me 4 Shakes Up The Top 5 Chart
Two New Releases Made The Domestic Chart This Weekend
By topping the box office chart in its debut,Despicable Me 4has ended the reign of the year’s previous animated hit,Pixar’sInside Out 2, which has held the No. 1 spot for three consecutive weekends since its debut on June 14 and already crossed the half-billion mark in North America alone. The rest of the Top 5 has seen quite a bit of movement over the holiday weekend, with the chart looking almost entirely different from the previous weekend. Below, see the full Top 5 chart at the domestic box office for the post-Fourth of July Friday-to-Sunday period:
1
$75 million
$122.6 million (weekend 1)
2
$33.1 million
$536.9 million (weekend 4)
3
$21 million
$94.3 million (weekend 2)
4
Bad Boys: Ride or Die
$6.77 million
$177.5 million (weekend 5)
5
$6.7 million
$6.7 million (weekend 1)
The other new release on the chart is the horror sequelMaXXXine,which is a follow-up to 2022’sXandPearl, at No. 5. While it has the highest opening weekend of the trilogy, the first installment opened at No. 4 while the second opened at No. 3, perhaps because of a lack of competition due to non-summer release dates and the pandemic-depressed box office. Meanwhile,A Quiet Place: Day Onehas slipped from No. 2 to No. 3 with a not-unusual 60% drop, whileBad Boys: Ride or Diemaintained its hold on No. 4 during its fifth weekend.
Horror movies tend to have somewhat more severe drops than other genres during their second weekends in theaters.
The biggest movement in the current Top 5comes from the two movies that were knocked off the chartby those new releases. The Indian sci-fi releaseKalki 2898 ADdropped from No. 5 to No.8, which is not particularly unusual for an international title. Kevin Costner’s post-YellowstoneWestern movieHorizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1has also fallen three places from No. 3 to No. 6 with a 47% drop, which is a reasonably strong hold but only brings its cumulative total to $22.6 million, far short of its budget, which is roughly $50 million or more.
Where Will Despicable Me 4 Rank Among The Franchise Overall?
The Movie Has The Chance To Rise Up The Despicable Me Chart
Overall, this opening weekend is the second-best result for the flagship franchise, but onlythe fourth-best of the overall franchise,including theMinionsmovies. While it’s a somewhat lukewarm debut compared to the rest of the franchise, the fact that it has improved on the most recent installment in the same subfranchise could show that box office prospects are improving for the series overall. Below, see how the opening weekends and complete worldwide box office totals compare for all of theDespicable Memoviesso far:
$56.4 million
$543.2 million
$83.5 million
$970.8 million
$115.7 million
$1.16 billion
$72.4 million
$1.03 billion
$107 million
$940.2 million
TBD
Even if the new movie represents a dip afterThe Rise of Gru, every movie since the original has grossed more than $900 million, so it will likely hit that level. Nearly matchingDespicable Me 3’s opening could also be an asset, as that installment ranks as the second highest-grossing installment. It remains to be seen if the new movie can push past $1 billion, consideringMinions 2’s failure to do so despite a better opening, but if it shakes off the pandemic doldrums of 2022, itcould potentially rise to become the No. 3Despicablemovieor better.
Despicable Me 4reviewscould also help bolster the movie’s prospects. While it has the worst rating of all six movies among critics with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 53%, audiences have given it a record-breaking score of 90%, edging outMinions: The Rise of Gru’s 89% to make it the highest-rated movie of the franchise among users of the review aggregator platform. This could indicate that the movie will be a word-of-mouth hit rather than a critical darling.
Despicable Me 4
Cast
The infamous (and kind-hearted) not-super villain Gru returns in Despicable Me 4, the fourth entry in the long-running movie series from Illumination Entertainment. The fourth film also sees the return of Gru’s wife, Lucy, portrayed again by Kristin Wiig, and introduces their son.
