Chris Luckett

This time last July, Illumination Entertainment’s Despicable Me spinoff Minions opened to a whopping $116-million. Their latest effort, the new property The Secret Life of Pets, has now scampered into theatres, achieving nearly the same success without the aid of previous films.

The Secret Life of Pets earned an estimated $103-million over its three-day debut, the seventh-largest opening weekend for an animated movie. (Finding Dory‘s winning cume of $135-million remained out of reach for Pets.)

Even so, the gross handily breaks the record for an animated non-sequel’s opening, previously held by Inside Out‘s opening weekend of $90-million.

The Legend of Tarzan came in second, pulling in an estimated $21-million. It’s drop of only 46% in its second weekend points to the positive word-of-mouth that has slowly spread about the picture.

Finding Dory could only pull of third-place, but its estimated $20-million earnings now put its domestic total at $423-million, making it the highest-grossing movie of 2016, usurping the title last held by Captain America: Civil War. It also now stands as the third-highest grossing animated movie ever.

The other new release of the weekend, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, opened in fourth to an estimated $17-million.

Meanwhile, the independent film Sultan had a huge opening of an estimated $2.2-million from only 283 theatres in Canada and the U.S., already making it the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2016.

1. The Secret Life of Pets ($103,170,000)
2. The Legend of Tarzan ($20,615,000)
3. Finding Dory ($20,351,000)
4. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates ($16,600,000)
5. The Purge: Election Year ($11,700,000)
6. Central Intelligence ($8,125,000)
7. Independence Day: Resurgence ($7,700,000)
8. The BFG ($7,604,000)
9. The Shallows ($4,800,000)
10. Sultan ($2,216,475)

(Source: Box Office Mojo)