Despicable Me 4 Tops The Box Office Again, But Longlegs Is The Weekend's True Big Winner

There was no doubt that Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage's Despicable Me 4 was going to repeat at the top of the box office this weekend. The animated movie from Illumination Entertainment made a whole lot of money during its first Friday-to Sunday ($75 million), and even if the blockbuster experienced a 60 percent weekend-to-weekend drop, it was not going to relinquish its title as "The Number One Movie In America."

In retrospect, that was a fair assessment... but that doesn't mean that this weekend's box office numbers are without surprises. Specifically, Osgood Perkins' Longlegs – an indie horror movie released by Neon – has performed exceptionally well, and it's ticket sales are stealing headlines from Despicable Me 4 despite it coming in second place. Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis.

Following Months Of Building Buzz, Longlegs Sets A Box Office Record For Neon

Since releasing Bong Joon-ho's Best Picture-winning Parasite in 2020, Neon has earned great respect as one of Hollywood's best indie distributors, and so far this year, they've matched that clout with some exciting box office success. In March, Michael Mohan's Immaculate starring Sydney Sweeney set an opening weekend record for the company, earning $5.3 million in its first three days of release... and now Longlegs has come along to blow that record out of the water.

According to The Numbers, Longlegs made $22.6 million in the last three days, and while that may not seem like a lot of money on the surface (it's just the 17th biggest opening weekend of 2024), the details explain why it's a big deal.

Like the majority of modern horror movies, Longlegs was not an expensive movie to make (Deadline reports that it cost less than $10 million to produce), but it has been building some outstanding buzz in the weeks and months leading up to its release. In addition to an exceptionally creepy and subtle marketing campaign that smartly kept Nicolas Cage's titular serial killer a mystery, critics have been hyping the film up for a while now. The feature debuted with a 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes in June, and while that number has since dipped to 87 percent, there is still a lot of love going around (I personally gave Longlegs five stars in my CinemaBlend review).

Helping make the box office results a little extra special is the scale of the release. While the biggest movies nowadays are put into 4,000 plus screens, Longlegs put up its numbers in just 2,500 locations. On average, those theaters made quite a bit of money off the release, as the film made just north of $9,000 per screen.

The title has already outgrossed a number of other wide release horror movies that have come out this year, including not only the aforementioned Immaculate, but also Ti West's MaXXXine ($11.8 million), Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg's Tarot ($18.8 million), Ishana Night Shyamalan's The Watchers ($19.1 million), and Arkasha Stevenson's The First Omen ($20.1 million). It also won't be long before it eclipses the domestic box office numbers of titles like Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet's Abigail ($25.0 million), Jeff Wadlow's Imaginary ($28 million) and Bryce McGuire's Night Swim ($32.5 million).

Whether it will be able to come close to catching up with Michael Sarnoski's A Quiet Place: Day One ($116.2 million) in the weeks to come will be an interesting development to watch as the summer wears on.

We don't know where Longlegs will end up among the top grossing horror movies of 2024, but it seems almost certain that it will end up being Neon's biggest film domestically when all is said and done. Parasite is presently the distributor's most successful title financially, having made $53.4 million during its theatrical run, but Osgood Perkins' film is just two spots behind it presently in the ranking (Craig Gillespie's I, Tonya starring Margot Robbie sits in second place having made $30 million during its time on the big screen).

Despicable Me 4 Drops Just 40 Percent Weekend-To-Weekend Following Its Excellent Debut

In the intro, I noted that Despicable Me 4 was going to win the box office even if its ticket sales fell 60 percent weekend-to-weekend, which would have left it making $30 million over the last three days. That isn't actually what happened, however. Instead, families continue to show a whole lot of love for the animated feature, and its numbers actually only dropped 40 percent compared to its first Friday-to-Sunday.

Despicable Me 4 added $44.7 million to its coffers in the last three days, which means that the blockbuster featuring the voices of Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell has now earned over $211.1 million in the United States and Canada. That now makes it the third highest grossing film of the year domestically, as it has surpassed what Adam Wingard's Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire brought in during its theatrical run in the spring.

It still sits behind both Kelsey Mann's Inside Out 2, which has made $572.6 million to date (having just added another $20.7 million this weekend) and Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two ($282.1 million). Worldwide, it still has some ground to cover, as it sits in seventh place having made $437.8 million so far.

Despicable Me 4 is presently pacing behind Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud's Despicable Me 2, which is the most successful title in the franchise's main series (a.k.a. not including Minions titles). By the 2013 film's 12th day/second weekend, it had made $228.4 million. It went on to finish its time on the big screen earning $381.1 million domestically.

Fly Me To The Moon Has Star Power But Has To Settle For Fifth Place In Its Opening Weekend

As you can see, things went well for Longlegs and Despicable Me 4 this weekend, but one disappointment to point at from the last three days is the performance of Greg Berlanti's period comedy Fly Me To The Moon. The movie sports some serious star power, with a cast including Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, and Woody Harrelson, but the wide release wasn't able to generate much hype (it got a mostly middling response from critics). The title only managed to bring in $10 million since Friday and had to settle for kicking off its box office run in fifth place.

Looking ahead to this coming week, things should get shaken up in a serious way with the release of Lee Isaac Chung's Twisters starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell and Anthony Ramos, which is expected to make a major impact at the box office. Thus far, critics have been kind to the tornado-centric disaster movie, so we'll see what kind of numbers its able to generate. Head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see how things shake out, and get a preview of all of the new features on the way to theaters and streaming in what remains of the year with our 2024 Movie Release Calendar.