Three new releases helped fuel the North American box office this weekend, with Universal’s animated action-comedy The Bad Guys on top with an estimated $24 million take, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported Sunday.
Bad Guys, a sort of animal-eye version of Oceans 11, follows the exploits of a wickedly clever gang of creatures. Produced by DreamWorks Animation, the film has a voice cast including Sam Rockwell, Craig Robinson, Awkwafina, Marc Ramon, Anthony Ramos, and Lilly Singh.
Overall, this was a good weekend for family-geared films—hit harder by the COVID effect than films targeting other demographics—with Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2 again placing second, at $15.2 million for the Friday-through-Sunday period.
“Family moviegoing was certainly rocked by the pandemic, but families are returning now,” said David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research. “We’re still far from pre-pandemic levels… but this is a good start.”
Third spot went to Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore from Warner Bros., at $14 million, a fairly sharp drop from last weekend’s $43 million opening for the Wizarding World film.
New releases claimed the next two spots. The Northman from Focus Features took in $12 million. And in fifth was Lionsgate’s very meta film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, at $7.2 million. Nicolas Cage plays, none too seriously, a man named Nick Cage.