Box Office

From cinemablend, 2016 is turning out to be the year of the animated feature, with entries from multiple studios breaking records, banking top dollars, and now outgunning the comic book movie genre.

The Secret Life of Pets scratched out an impressive $103 million opening, joining just five other animated features to open above $100 million. Not only is that one of the highest ever animated openings in general, it's the highest for an original (non-sequel or spinoff) animated movie.

While The Secret Life of Pets was breaking into the number one spot, Finding Dorywas slipping into a different kind of number one: highest grossing movie of the year to date. After three weekends at number on the animated sequel added $20 million on its fourth weekend, bringing its domestic total to $422 million, well past Captain America: Civil War's $406 million and Deadpool's $363 million. If it can hold on to the position, it will mark the third time a Pixar movie as ranked the top grossing movie of the year (Toy Story, 1995 and Toy Story 3, 2010).

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates opened in fourth place with $16 million against a $33 million production budget. That's not a resounding endorsement for director Jake Szymanski's freshman feature length theatrical release, but it's enough to avoid being labelled a box office failure.

Sultan, the latest offering from Yash Raj Studios, opened in fewer than 300 venues but manages to sneak into the top ten with $2 million. That's the second largest North American opening for the Indian production house, and only the latest in a string of Indian movies that have been finding a growing audience in US theaters.