Weekend Box Office: ‘Finding Dory’ Wins Third Weekend In A Row By Beating Three New Releases

Three new releases ended up opening in the top ten of the box office for the Fourth of July weekend, but it was a film that opened 3 weeks ago that stayed on top. Finding Dory had some pretty stiff competition this week, and that includes a new release from Disney in The BFG, but it managed to still bring in great numbers. After 3 weeks, it has dropped some, but Dory knows how to just keep swimming to more money.

It really is very hard to argue with the success that Disney-Pixar has had, and Finding Dory is showing that even sequels have a lot of pull. Without counting the holiday yet, Finding Dory brought in an estimated $41.9 million for its third weekend which is a drop of almost 47 percent from last weekend.

That’s not bad, considering it has already brought in a grand total of $372.25 million domestically and more than half a billion around the world.

According to Box Office Mojo, second place belongs to new release The Legend of Tarzan which hasn’t been met with great response from critics, but it did very well at the box office. Industry expectations were blown out of the water by its $38.1 million domestic take.

Coming in third place at the domestic box office this week is the third film in a franchise that is doing much better than anyone originally expected. The Purge: Election Year started off with an extremely strong $30.8 million which is a bit more than the second film, The Purge: Anarchy, brought in two years ago.

With a budget of a mere $10 million, it has already exceeded expectations and looks to be well on its way to continuing the franchise.

Disney’s The BFG opened in fourth with just $19.58 million and that is far below expectations. Not all Disney films are going to be gigantic hits, but the company certainly was hoping for a bit more from this one.

As for fifth place, that belonged to Independence Day: Resurgence, and it still isn’t doing very well. After its second weekend, it is only up to $72.6 million domestically and $249 million worldwide, which means it has easily surpassed its budget.

Even with the disappointing box office in the United States, this is not expected to be the last film in the franchise as many signs are pointing to a third film being made in the coming years.

Here are the estimated numbers for the top ten films at the box office for July 1-3, 2016:

1. Finding Dory – $41.9 million

2. The Legend of Tarzan – $38.1 million

3. The Purge: Election Year – $30.8 million

4. The BFG – $19.5 million

5. Independence Day: Resurgence – $16.5 million

6. Central Intelligence – $12.3 million

7. The Shallows – $9.0 million

8. Free State of Jones – $4.1 million

9. The Conjuring 2 – $3.8 million

10. Now You See Me 2 – $2.9 million

Final numbers will be out on Tuesday, since Monday is the Fourth of July and that will cause the numbers to be delayed. This could cause some of the top 10 positioning to be altered a bit before everything is said and done, but it doesn’t look as if the top five spots will have any switching up.

Disney is having an epic year at the box office domestically and around the world, but not all films are turning into gigantic hits. The BFG has started off rather slow this weekend, and it’s obvious that they were hoping for more from the film directed by Steven Spielberg. Still, there should be a bit more brought in overall thanks to the long Fourth of July weekend.

[Image via Disney]