--- title: Minions' Nabs $115 Million in Second-biggest Animated Opening Ever description: They may be bumbling sidekicks, but the Minions proved that they can rule the box office all on their own canonical: https://time.com/3954831/minions-box-office/ author: Entertainment Weekly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-12T17:39:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:02:32.494Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: 'Minions' Nabs $115 Million in Second-biggest Animated Opening Ever og:description: Behind only 'Shrek The Third' og:url: https://time.com/3954831/minions-box-office/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4296431be9786555/69885a86e53abaf7054de90f/minions1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: minions og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Minions' Nabs $115 Million in Second-biggest Animated Opening Ever twitter:description: Behind only 'Shrek The Third' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4296431be9786555/69885a86e53abaf7054de90f/minions1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _Minions_ Nabs $115 Million in Second Biggest Animated Opening Ever by [Devan Coggan / Entertainment Weekly](https://time.com/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Devan Coggan / Entertainment Weekly Jul 12, 2015 5:39 PM UTC  In this image released by Universal Pictures, various minion characters appear in a scene from the animated feature, "Minions." (Illumination Entertainment/Universal Pictures via AP) In this image released by Universal Pictures, various minion characters appear in a scene from the animated feature, "Minions." (Illumination Entertainment/Universal Pictures via AP)Universal Pictures/Illumination Entertainment/AP by [Devan Coggan / Entertainment Weekly](https://time.com/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Devan Coggan / Entertainment Weekly Jul 12, 2015 5:39 PM UTC They may be bumbling sidekicks, but the Minions proved that they can rule the box office all on their own: The _Despicable Me_ prequel debuted to an estimated $115.2 million this weekend, giving them the second-biggest animated opening of all time. That number doesn’t account for inflation, but it still means that _Minions_ is only the fourth animated film ever to make more than $100 million in its first weekend. While it wasn’t enough to best _Shrek the Third_’s record of $121.6 million, _Minions_ did beat _Toy Story 3_ ($110.3 million) and _Shrek 2_ ($108 million). And although it fell short of the biggest animated opening ever, _Minions_ did score the biggest animated opening day ever with $46.2 million on Friday, besting_Toy Story 3_’s $41.7 million record. Another big accomplishment? _Minions_ is only the fourth film this year to crack $100 million. Even more impressively, three of those four have been from Universal. (_Furious 7_ and _Jurassic World_ are both Universal films, and _Avengers: Age of Ultron_ was released by Disney.) The only other big openings this weekend were horror flick _The Gallows_ and sci-fi thriller _Self/Less. Self/Less_ got shut out of the top five with only an estimated $5.4 million for the weekend, but _The Gallows_ snagged fifth place with $10 million. After _Inside Out_ snapped _Jurassic World’s_ winning streak [last weekend](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/07/06/inside-out-finally-beat-jurassic-world-box-office), the dinosaurs pulled ahead again this weekend, snagging second place with $18.1 million to _Inside Out’s_ $17.1 million. And after _Terminator Genisys’_ underwhelming debut, it fell to fourth place in its second weekend with $13.7 million. Here are this weekend’s top five at the box office: **1\.** [**_Minions_**](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/23/minions-ew-review)**— $115.2 million** **2\.** [**_Jurassic World_**](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/10/jurassic-world-review)**— $18.1 million** **3\.** [**_Inside Out_**](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/16/inside-out-ew-review)**— $17.1 million** **4\.** [**_Terminator Genisys_**](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/29/terminator-genisys-ew-review)**— $13.7 million** **5\.** [**_The Gallows_**](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/07/09/gallows-ew-review)**— $ 10 million** _This_ [_article_](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/07/12/box-office-report-minions-second-biggest-animated-opening-ever) _originally appeared on_ [_EW.com_](http://www.ew.com/) ### Sandra Bullock  Universal; Getty Images Sandra Bullock stars as Scarlet Overkill, an ambitious supervillain. ### Jon Hamm  Universal; Getty Images Jon Hamm voices Herb Overkill, the supportive husband of supervillain Scarlett Overkill. ### Michael Keaton  Universal; Getty Images Michael Keaton voices Walter Nelson, a well intentioned husband and father of a family of bank robbers on a road trip to Villain-Con in Orlando. ### Allison Janney  Universal; Getty Images Allison Janney plays Madge Nelson, Walter’s wife and matriarch of their family of bank-robbers. ### Pierre Coffin  Universal; Getty Images Director Pierre Coffin reprises his role as the voices of the minions that he also played in _Despicable Me_ and _Despicable Me 2_. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3954831/minions-box-office/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3954831/minions-box-office/"},"headline":"Minions Nabs $115 Million in Second Biggest Animated Opening Ever","datePublished":"2015-07-12T17:39:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:02:32.494Z","description":"Behind only Shrek the Third","url":"https://time.com/3954831/minions-box-office/","keywords":["movies"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4296431be9786555/69885a86e53abaf7054de90f/minions1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Devan Coggan / Entertainment Weekly"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4296431be9786555/69885a86e53abaf7054de90f/minions1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"minions","caption":"minions","creditText":"Universal Pictures/Illumination Entertainment/AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3954831/minions-box-office/","name":"Minions Nabs $115 Million in Second Biggest Animated Opening Ever"}}]}] ```