Hollywood may still be having its strongest summer in years, but the July 4 weekend just proved that even the safest franchises are no longer guaranteed fireworks. Minions & Monsters topped the North American box office, but its win came with a warning sign. The latest entry in the Despicable Me universe earned around $61 million over its five-day opening, marking the lowest start in the franchise’s history. That is a sharp fall from earlier entries like Minions: The Rise of Gru and Despicable Me 4, which both opened far bigger over the same holiday stretch.
The film is not a disaster. Internationally, it has performed much better, bringing its global opening to nearly $160 million. With an estimated $85 million production budget, it can still become profitable. But the message is clear: audiences may still like the Minions, they just may not be rushing to theatres for them like they once did.
That is what makes the comparison with Toy Story 5 interesting. Pixar’s sequel earned $31 million in its third weekend and has already crossed $764 million worldwide. The difference is scarcity. Toy Story has released five films in three decades. Despicable Me has now delivered seven films in 16 years. At some point, even the cutest yellow chaos machines start feeling overused.
Meanwhile, things look far worse for Supergirl. The DC film dropped 74 percent in its second weekend, earning only $9.6 million after an already weak opening. With just over $100 million worldwide so far against a reported $170 million budget, the movie is now expected to lose a huge amount theatrically.
The bigger problem is not just Supergirl. It is superhero fatigue, especially when studios expect audiences to show up for characters who are not yet household names. Superman and Spider-Man still have built-in cultural power. Supergirl needed more than a cape to convince casual viewers, and clearly, that did not happen.
The weekend was not completely bleak. Angel Studios’ patriotic drama Young Washington opened strongly with $20.8 million, proving once again that targeted audiences can still deliver big results when a film understands exactly who it is speaking to.
The real takeaway is simple: franchise loyalty has limits. Families will come out for animation, but not endlessly for the same brand. Comic-book fans will support superheroes, but not blindly. Audiences are becoming more selective, and studios can no longer assume that familiar names alone will carry a weekend.
With Moana, The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day still ahead, summer box office can recover. But this weekend was a reminder that Hollywood’s biggest brands need freshness, not just another installment.