Pets fetch $139.2m at box office

The Secret Life Of Pets has the largest opening this year in North America for an original movie.
The Secret Life Of Pets has the largest opening this year in North America for an original movie. PHOTO: ILLUMINATION ENTERTAINMENT AND UNIVERSAL PICTURES

LOS ANGELES • Few summer movies had as much riding on them as The Secret Life Of Pets. NBCUniversal started work on a related theme-park ride before selling a single ticket.

"If the film doesn't do as well as I think, it will be painful," company chief executive Steve Burke said last month.

Well, the pooches and their pals pulled it off: The Secret Life Of Pets took in about US$103.2 million (S$139.2 million) over the weekend at North American cinemas, the largest opening this year for an original movie.

Moreover, Illumination Entertainment, Universal's animation division, kept production costs to a relatively modest US$75 million.

Universal and Illumination, the studio behind the Despicable Me series, spent at least a year marketing the film, which received playful reviews.

The Legend Of Tarzan (Warner Bros) was a distant second, collecting about US$20.6 million, according to comScore, which compiles box-office data.

Finding Dory (Disney) was third, with domestic ticket sales of about US$20.4 million for a four-week domestic total of US$422.6 million.

NEW YORK TIMES

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on July 12, 2016, with the headline Pets fetch $139.2m at box office. Subscribe