‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’ Pulls Bananas Box Office Previews

Illumination’s Minions: The Rise of Gru had pulled in the best preview earnings at the box office of any animated feature since the start of the Coivd-19 pandemic.

The latest film in the Despicable Me universe raked in $10.75 million dollars from showtimes starting at 2pm on Thursday in 3,350 rooms. Not only is the performance a post-pandemic best, it also tops what Minions was able to do when that film earned $6.2 million from previews in 2015.

According to Scott Mendelson at Forbes, The Rise of Gru’s preview gross ranks fourth all-time in animated feature preview earnings, behind only the cg-animation remake of The Lion King ($23 million), Incredibles 2 ($18.2 million), and Toy Story 4 ($12 million).

Financial predictions for Minions: Rise of Gru’s opening weekend have been all over the place, with experts suggesting earlier this week that the film could make anywhere between $65-93 million over the extended July 4 holiday weekend. By comparison, Pixar’s Lightyear managed less than $51 million during its opening weekend, although that film faced far stronger competition at the time.

One hard to deny implication of The Rise of Gru’s performance is that Disney has lost the pandemic excuse for Lightyear’s poor showing at the box office. The Rise of Gru’s previews also seem to suggest that the scattershot opening weekend predictions for the film might have been too conservative.

We’ll keep an eye on Fourth of July holiday earnings for Rise of Gru. Meanwhile, take a look at what critics have been saying about the film.