‘Despicable Me 2’ already beating ‘Lone Ranger’ at box office

“The Lone Ranger” will have to crack its whip to reach the front of the box office pack this holiday weekend.

The big-budget western starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer hit theaters at 7 p.m. Tuesday opposite “Despicable Me 2,” but the animated 3-D sequel quickly pulled ahead at the multiplex. Playing in roughly 2,500 theaters, the family film grossed $4.7 million from late shows, according to an estimate from distributor Universal Pictures. During that same time period, “The Lone Ranger” sold $2 million in tickets.

It doesn’t appear that the $225-million production has a good chance of catching up with “Despicable Me 2” over the Fourth of July, either. At 8 a.m. on Wednesday, ticket seller Fandango said the PG-rated cartoon was dominating 71% of the day’s sales. On Tuesday, meanwhile, roughly half of the transactions on MovieTickets.com were for advance tickets to the animated film; about 10% were for “The Lone Ranger,” just slightly more than the 8% the new Kevin Hart stand-up comedy film “Let Me Explain” sold.

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“Despicable Me 2,” which cost Universal $76 million to make, is already on track to perform better than a handful of recent animated releases. When it hit theaters at 8 p.m. on a Thursday in late June, “Monsters University” grossed $3 million and has since gone on to become a hit, with about $180 million in domestic sales thus far. This weekend, the 3-D Disney sequel will probably dethrone “The Croods” as the biggest animated title of 2013, surpassing the DreamWorks Animation film’s $184.5-million tally.

Not that the “Monsters” will be able to gloat for long. Within a few weeks, “Despicable Me 2” will probably have the scarers beat. The original “Despicable Me” grossed $251.5 million in the U.S. and Canada in 2010, and that movie opened with half as much as the sequel is expected to.

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