‘Secret Life of Pets’ takes big bite out of box office numbers in its debut
“The Secret Life of Pets” is proving to be no dog at the box office, earning an estimated $38 million in its opening day Friday.
The movie unseated another computer-animated favorite in Disney-Pixar’s “Finding Dory,” which dipped to third place with just over $6 million on Friday. The numbers mark a strong start for “The Secret Life of Pets,” which was projected to make $75 million this weekend, according to those who saw pre-release audience surveys.
The big opening is good news for the bottom line of Universal’s Illumination Entertainment, which produced “The Secret Life of Pets” for $75 million and also earned a big hit last year with the “Despicable Me” spinoff, “Minions.” “The Secret Life of Pets” also features a lineup of comedy heavyweights in its cast, which includes Louis C.K. as a Jack Russell terrier, along with Kevin Hart as a rabbit and Jenny Slate as a white Pomeranian. The film has scored reasonably well with critics, earning an 84% on the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.
The R-rated comedy “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” also premiered Friday, landing in second place with an estimated $6.6 million. Led by Zac Efron and Adam Devine as the title characters, along with Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza, the film was expected to earn between $12 million and $14 million this weekend.
In its second week of release, “The Legend of Tarzan” earned an estimated $6.2 million for fourth place on Friday, followed by “The Purge: Election Year,” which earned just over $4 million.
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