Skip to main content

‘Finding Dory’ on track to smash box-office record for animated films

box office the girl on train finding dory pixar
Pixar Animation Studios
Disney and Pixar have again created what looks like box office gold. Finding Dory, the much belated sequel to 2003’s Finding Nemo is on its way to an impressive record: The film is expected to garner over $130 million at the domestic box office this weekend, which would make it the biggest debut to date of an animated flick, according to Deadline.

There are good indicators that Finding Dory will crush earlier records. Estimates put its first-day earnings at between $50 million to $52 million, which would top the $46 million brought in by current opening-day record-holder Minions (set July 10, 2015). The Nemo sequel’s Thursday previews were also unprecedented; Finding Dory grossed $9.2 million, yanking away yet another honor from Minions, which grossed $6.2 million, according to THR.

Related Videos

Assuming Finding Dory performs as projected, the film’s ticket sales would be enough to dethrone current animated top dog, DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek the Third, which opened to $121.63 million in 2007. Dory would also boast the best opening ever for any Disney-Pixar flick; Toy Story 3, which was released in 2010, is the reigning champ with its $110.3 million debut.

Finding Nemo, of course, deserves immense credit for building the foundation for Dory‘s popularity now. The film was received with enthusiasm in 2003, opening to $70.25 million and ultimately grossing $380.84 domestically, according to Box Office Mojo data. Its critical response was also notable. Not only did Nemo win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, it was nominated in three other Oscar categories as well.

Finding Dory brings back the characters made popular by its predecessor: Dory, a forgetful Pacific royal blue tang (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres); Marlin, a clownfish and concerned father (Albert Brooks); and Nemo, Marlin’s son (now voiced by Hayden Rolence, who replaces Alexander Gould). The trio’s adventure this time around is finding Dory’s family. The voice cast also includes Diane Keaton, Ed O’Neill, Eugene Levy, Kaitlin Olsen, and Ty Burrell.

Editors' Recommendations

‘Coco’ is box office champ again, but ‘Shape of Water’ goes big in small debut
The Shape of Water review

Without any major wide releases hitting theaters, the top five films at the box office remained the same as last week, and the animated feature Coco remained on top of the box office once again.

Disney and Pixar's film about a young boy whose love of music sends him on an epic adventure through the land of the dead easily won the weekend, and dropped a mere 48 percent from last week's premiere -- suggesting that this could be the beginning of a strong run for the critically praised film. The film has already earned nearly $280 million worldwide, and is currently on a pace to beat last year's Moana, which premiered on the same weekend and went on to earn $248.7 million in U.S. theaters and $643.3 million worldwide.

Read more
‘Coco’ knocks off ‘Justice League’ to win holiday weekend box office
Coco favorite movies of 2017

The reign of Justice League as Hollywood's box-office champion certainly didn't last very long.

Coco, Disney and Pixar's latest animated feature, knocked Justice League off the top of the weekend box office rankings after just one week, and took home an impressive $71.1 million over the course of the five-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The animated movie was a win all around for Disney, receiving a rare A+ grade from audiences (via polling site CinemaScore) and 96 percent positive score from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes to go along with its big weekend.

Read more
‘Justice League’ limps to box office win with worst debut in franchise history
Justice League Snyder Cut

The long-awaited premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures' live-action superhero team-up film Justice League was anything but super, and the underachieving film paired its poor early reviews with an even more underwhelming opening weekend at the box office.

The $96 million debut for Justice League in U.S. theaters is the lowest of any film in WB's cinematic universe based on DC Comics characters, and well below the early projections that had it raking in at least $120 million from Thursday's "preview" screenings and the three-day weekend. Given that the film was intended to be WB's equivalent to The Avengers, uniting all of the studio's primary superhero characters on the same screen for a joint adventure, its debut was particularly bad and will likely lead to some hard questions about future projects that were announced but had yet to begin production.

Read more