• by Wayne Friedman , Today

Universal Pictures’s “Minions & Monsters” $61 million opening, according to ComScore, wasn't the monster opening the studio expected.

The film was estimated to take in between $80 million and $95 million.

“Minions” had the lowest opening box-office revenue among all the franchise's seven "Minions"/"Despicable Me" editions.

Two of the franchise's most recent movies performed much better over the same five-day holiday weekend: In 2022, “Minions: The Rise of Gru” took in $123 million, while “Despicable Me 4,” (2024) $122 million.

Looking at the traditional three-day Friday to Sunday weekend, “Minions & Monsters” posted another franchise low at $36 million.

This is partly because another family-oriented movie -- “Toy Story 5” -- is still in theaters and in high demand in its third week of release, where it pulled in another $31 million between Friday and Monday.

“Toy Story” has now soared to $366 million in North America box office and $764 million worldwide.

The weekend also wasn’t kind to the second week of Warner Bros./DC Comics’ “Supergirl” -- which came in at $9.6 million. The highly anticipated movie already had a very disappointing opening weekend, with $37.1 million.

There was no lack of advertising for “Minions.” Universal spent $16.3 million, according to estimates from iSpot.tv, with 1,845 airings and 689.2 million impressions.

And the film earned positive reviews by critics, with a 91% score, per Rotten Tomatoes. Moviegoers scored it a bit lower, at 75%, while CinemaScore’ data gave it an A- grade according to its moviegoers research.