‘Finding Dory’ continues to outpace ‘Tarzan’ and ‘The BFG’ at box office

Tarzan may be king of the jungle, but when facing off against a particular forgetful fish, he’s out of his depths. Disney-Pixar’s “Finding Dory” is cruising toward its third weekend atop the box office, grossing an estimated $14.6 million in the U.S. and Canada on Saturday and on track to earn about $50 million over the holiday weekend.

Warner Bros’ “The Legend of Tarzan,” the latest adaptation of the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912, will likely end the weekend in second place, grossing $12.6 Saturday and looking to bring in $44 million during the four-day weekend.

Though surpassing initial projections that had the film earning $30 million domestically for the weekend, the number still falls far short of the $180 million the film cost to make.

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Watch the trailer for “The Legend of Tarzan.”

It’s a different story for Universal’s “The Purge: Election Year,” the third film in James DeMonaco’s series from producers Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes. The new film made $9.4 million on Saturday and looks to surpass original weekend estimates to earn about $34 million over the holiday weekend, far outpacing its $10-million production cost. The franchise imagines a future in which crime is legal in the U.S. for one 12-hour period each year.

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Watch the trailer for “The Purge: Election Year.” 

Steven Spielberg’s “The BFG,” the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s story of a lonely child among the giants, continued to underperform at the box office for Disney-Amblin. Saturday estimates had the film earning $6.1 million, on track for a fourth-place finish. Its cumulative domestic take is on track to be about $23 million for the long weekend, a disappointing number for a film with a production budget said to be $140 million.

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Watch the trailer for “The BFG.”

Rounding out the box office is the seasonally appropriate “Independence Day: Resurgence.” Directed by Roland Emmerich, the sequel to 1996’s “Independence Day,” which features a new wave of alien invaders the Earth must beat back, brought in $6 million on Saturday and is tracking to make about $20 million over the holiday weekend, bringing its cumulative box office to $76 million.

libby.hill@latimes.com

Twitter: @midwestspitfire

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