“Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation” has checked into the No. 1 spot at the box office in its opening weekend and left the Dwayne Johnson action thriller “Skyscraper” in the dust.
Sony Pictures estimated Sunday that the animated family movie earned $44.1 million from North American theaters. As the first in the franchise to open in the summer, it’s just slightly under the previous installment’s $48.5 million debut in September 2015.
“It’s really terrific,” said Adrian Smith, Sony’s head of domestic distribution. “We’re positioned to take advantage of the valuable summer weekdays, and there are six weeks of summer left.”
The successful series has grossed more than $900 million worldwide to date.
Going into the weekend, experts expected a three-way race to the top among “Hotel Transylvania 3,” “Skyscraper” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” but the family film won by a large margin.
“There haven’t been a lot of options for families this summer,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. “They become instant hits.”
“Skyscraper,” a rare original summer blockbuster, remained earthbound in its first weekend in North America. The Universal Pictures film brought in only $25.5 million domestically. “Skyscraper” cost a reported $125 million to produce, not accounting for marketing costs.
(Universal Pictures is a division of NBC Universal, the parent company of NBC News.)
Johnson has been a consistent presence in movie theaters this year with both “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” and “Rampage” before “Skyscraper.”
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