Finding Dory was predicted to gross as much as $115-120 million headed into its opening weekend at the U.S. box office alone.
Finding Dory has already set a U.S. Thursday night opening record for animated films – and now, early box office estimates suggest it will the same for animated movie opening weekends.
Similarly, Finding Dory is now expected to easily pass the third Shrek movie’s $121.6 million U.S. opening weekend take (the biggest for an animated film to date) and will pass the $90 million three-day U.S. opening of last year’s Pixar hit Inside Out on its second day of release stateside.
For the larger Disney corporation, Finding Dory is the latest 2016 movie to have both been celebrated as creative accomplishments and hit it big at the box office, following after Zootopia, The Jungle Book, and Captain America: Civil War.