'Despicable Me 3' Fades Over the Weekend, 'Baby Driver' Takes Second Place

This year's fireworks display at the July Fourth box office was decidedly mixed, led by Despicable Me 3 with $75.4 million from 4,529 theaters.

In an surprise twist, the threequel came in notably behind expectations for Universal and Illumination. Heading into the weekend, most had expected it to rake in $85 million-$90 million. Even late Friday, box-office analysts showed the movie earning north of $80 million, but traffic slowed dramatically on Saturday for many films.

Gru and his minions are doing more villainous business overseas, where Despicable Me 3 earned $95.6 million from 52 markets for a foreign total of $116.9 million and $192.3 million globally (it began rolling out offshore in some territories two weeks ago).

While Despicable Me 3 didn't get entirely sunk by sequel fatigue in North America, it proves another cautionary tale for Hollywood, a town fixated with churning out multiple installments in a film franchise. Fourth of July was supposed to help close a year-over-year gap in summer box-office revenue, but it didn't. According to comScore, revenue is currently down by nearly 8 percent.

Read the rest of this article at The Hollywood Reporter.

Baby Driver came in a distant second, and The House turned in the worst first weekend of WIll Ferrell's career.