Weekend Box Office: 'BFG' Bombs, 'Dory' Stays on Top

The Fourth of July weekend played out according to plan at the box office, with the week's two big-budget new releases struggling to connect with audiences and last week's number-one movie continuing its run at the head of the pack.

The biggest news of the weekend was the failure of Steven Spielberg's The BFG to generate any interest among moviegoers. The film, which had a production budget approaching $140 million, was expected to take in about $30 million over the weekend, but it didn't even do that well. It will be lucky to pull in $20 million by the end of the day Sunday and will fall to fourth place in the weekend's box-office race.

The week's other costly new film, The Legend of Tarzan, did marginally better, hauling in $38 million over the first few days of the weekend. That will be good enough for second place, but it's not a good start for a movie that cost $180 million to make.

The week's final new wide release, The Purge: Election Year, earned $31 million and nailed down third place. Its top-three finish makes The Purge the success story of the week, given that its production budget was a fraction of the money spent on the two big-budget releases.

The top movie of the week was, once again, Finding Dory. The family-oriented Pixar film took the top spot for the third week in a row with an additional $42 million in ticket sales through Sunday.