'Dory's Glory: Pixar Sequel Set to Post All-Time Record Opening for Animated Pic With $130M+

By Anthony D'Alessandro, Deadline

2ND UPDATE: We’re hearing that Disney-Pixar’s Finding Dory is swimming upstream to a record opening of $130M+ for the weekend and today alone will clear $50M-$52M.That’s also an opening day record for an animated movie, outstrippingMinions previous first day high of $46M on July 10 last year. These projections are based on matinees estimates from rival distribs, as can fluctuate up or down by evening. Dory‘s weekend opening will unseat the opening record set by DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek the Third which over its first FSS made $121.6M. Universal/Illumination’s Minions follows in the opening weekend record books with $115.7M, followed by Disney/Pixar’s previous champ Toy Story 3 which made $110.3M in its first three days. Heading into this weekend, Fandango announced that Dory was the online ticket seller’s best pre-seller of all-time for a feature toon. No surprise here with Dory: From the beginning of summer, trackers called a five quad sequel — it’s a follow-up to a legacy, cornerstone Disney/Pixar movie, 2003’s Finding Nemo, which made $380.8M stateside, $936.7M worldwide.

Warner Bros/New Line/Universal’s Central Intelligence is also poised to fare well with a $12M-$13M Friday and a FSS opening north of $33M.

In regards to last weekend’s wide entries, here’s how they’re looking: WB/New Line’s Conjuring 2 is looking to decline 60% for a second FSS of at least $16M in third place. Through 10 days, it will count $72.2M.

Lionsgate’s Now You See Me 2 is pacing for a -55% second sesh with $10M and a running cume by Sunday of $41.7M. And as the saying goes in distribution –“Don’t stand underneath this thing” — as Universal/Legendary’s Warcraft is set to drop 70% for an estimated $7.2M and a running 10-day total by weekend’s end of $38.4M.

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1ST UPDATE: In what is expected to be the second-biggest opening weekend this summer, Disney and Pixar’s Finding Dory started its climb last night grossing $9.2 million, a record preview total for any feature animated film. Not only does Finding Dory‘s Thursday night blow away previous Pixar records set by Toy Story 3 with $4M (Friday midnight shows, $110.3M opening) and last June’s Inside Out which minted $3.7M ($90.4M opening), but the fish film whips the preview nights of Universal/Illumination’s Minions ($6.2M) and Despicable Me 2 ($4.7M). Finding Dory will be the widest Pixar release of all time, playing at 4,305 venues today. Its 3-day take is expected to be at $100M-plus.

Finding Dory‘s presence at the box office this weekend comes at a much needed time at the summer box office when ticket sales per ComScore are off 18% from May 1-June 12 versus the same period last year. The biggest film this summer — and for the year — is Disney/Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War, which is now crossing the $400M mark, becoming the first movie to do so this year. Other than that, we’ve seen plenty of prolific casualties in just a month in a half including Warcraft ($31M stateside, $160M+ cost), Alice Through The Looking Glass ($65.7M, $170M cost), and Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows ($66.7M, $135M cost). Viacom said today that the disappointing B.O. results for TMNT 2 will hurt its earnings, and that a SVOD deal for the title still isn’t in place.

Warner Bros./New Line/Universal’s little Hart and big Johnson PG-13 action comedy Central Intelligence made $1.835M last night. The Rawson Marshall Thurber title is expected to make $30M this weekend, maybe more. In regards to its preview night, Central Intelligence falls in line with other comedies such as Spy ($1.5M preview, $29.1M opening), Kevin Hart’s co-billed comedy Get Hard ($1.8M, $33.8M FSS), Dumb And Dumber To ($1.6M, $36M FSS) and The Heat ($1M preview, $39.1M opening). Similar to other New Line comedies, Central Intelligence comes with a thrifty reported cost of $50M. What always has any studio stoked when they’re in business with Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart is the amount of social promotion the duo do for their movies; according to RelishMix together they reach close to 210M people.

(Photo: Pixar)

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Watch the cast answer “What would Dory do?”