Comcast
CMCSA
-owned Universal Pictures’ latest and the fifth installment of the
Despicable Me
franchise,
Minions: The Rise of Gru
, broke the Jul 4 weekend box-office record with a collection of more than $125 million domestically. The record was previously held by
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
, which made $115.9 million in its first four days in 2011.
Minions: The Rise of Gru
brought in an estimated $108.5 million in ticket sales in the opening weekend from 4,391 screens in North America. Overseas, the movie grossed $86 million on Jul 3 for a global collection of more than $200 million.
Universal and Illumination have had enormous success with the five
Despicable Me
movies and spinoffs, dating back to 2010, and have earned over $3.7 billion at the global box office.
Directed by Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val,
Minions: The Rise of Gru
tells the origin story of evil mastermind Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) through the enlarged eyes of his silly, babbling yellow helpers (voiced by Pierre Coffin).
Minions: The Rise of Gru
is not currently available to stream but the rest of the
Despicable Me
cinematic universe is streaming via Peacock and/or NBC Universal.
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Comcast’s Production House Joins Others Gaining From Theater Reopening
Although the box office is still down about 33% so far in 2022 compared with the same time in 2019,
Minions: The Rise of Gru
serves as proof that family audiences are willing to go back to the movie theater.
Minions: The Rise of Gru
is just the latest in a string of successes for Universal’s family releases, including
Sing 2
, which has grossed more than $406 million since opening in December, and
The Bad Guys
, which has made more than $243 million.
Last weekend, for the first time since pre-Covid times, four movies (
Elvis, Jurassic World: Dominion, The Black Phone,
and
Top Gun: Maverick
) grossed over $20 million.
Other recent releases, including
Paramount Global
’s
PARA
Top Gun: Maverick
continues to deliver, having added another $25.5 million to its total, which has already surpassed $1 billion. The Paramount Pictures film is playing at 3,843 locations in its sixth weekend. This Tom Cruise movie by Paramount Global also continues to impress overseas, where it earned another $37 million over the last weekend. So far, the movie has earned $544.5 million from foreign markets and $1.11 billion globally.
Last month,
Disney
DIS
owned Pixar Animation Studios’
Lightyear
disappointed in its opening weekend, grossing $50.6 million domestically and tumbled further in its third weekend with an estimated $6.5 million. Opening in wide release next weekend is Disney and Marvel’s
Thor: Love and Thunder
, which is expected to lift the company’s box-office revenues in the near term.
Warner Bros. Discovery
’s
WBD
Elvis
collected $17.9 million from 3,932 venues over the weekend in North America and hit $113 million globally, including $34 million overseas. So far, the Warner Bros. musical biopic has accumulated $70 million in North America.
Elvis
stars Austin Butler as the king of rock and roll.
Other Universal titles such as
Jurassic World: Dominion
picked another $15.7 million and the horror movie
The Black Phone
added $12.3 million over the last weekend.
Leading up to the release of
Minions: The Rise of Gru
, Universal’s marketers had the Minions collaborating with the Tokyo Olympics, appearing on NBC shows like
American Ninja Warrior
and
America’s Got Talent
.
However, Comcast, a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) company, suffers from increasing programming & production costs, which grew 18.5% year over year to $10.57 billion in first-quarter 2022. Advertising, marketing and promotional expenses increased 27.6% year over year to $2.06 billion.
You can see
the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here
.
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