Universal/Illumination Entertainment’s Despicable Me 2 easily conquered the box office in its debut weekend, taking in an estimated $82.518 million in ticket sales to put it comfortably ahead of Disney’s remake of The Lone Ranger, which came in a distant second with an estimated $29.432 million in ticket sales. The premiere was also much larger than the original film’s premiere weekend ticket sales of $56.4 million. Incorporating the July 4th holiday weekend brings Despicable Me 2‘s five-day total to an estimated $142.1 million, putting it just ahead of the five-day total of Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 3 ($141 million) and making Despicable Me 2 one of the biggest openings for an animated feature.
Despicable Me 2’s success seems to have knocked the wind out of Disney/Pixar’s Monsters University at the box office as well, with the latter film’s estimated take of $19.59 million representing a 57% drop from the previous week and making it unlikely that the movie will break the $300 million barrier in domestic ticket sales during its theatrical run.
