Minions and Monsters vs Toy Story 5 Box Office: Who Won

Four wide releases crashed the July 4, 2026 weekend. Only one came out on top. And the Minions and Monsters vs Toy Story 5 box office showdown everyone circled on the calendar? It didn’t play out the way the trackers swore it would.

The little yellow guys took the frame. But calling it a “win” needs an asterisk the size of a movie screen.

So here’s the whole holiday scoreboard in one place — who topped the chart, who cratered, and which quiet underdog snuck past the giants. No stitching five separate wire reports together to figure it out.

Minions and Monsters vs Toy Story 5 box office: the July 4 scoreboard

Let’s settle the top line first. Minions & Monsters opened to $64.5 million over the five-day holiday frame to lead the weekend, while Toy Story 5 pulled roughly $32 million in its third weekend for second place (Hollywood Outbreak).

Here’s how the four wide releases stacked up:

• Minions & Monsters — $64.5M five-day debut, #1 for the weekend
• Toy Story 5 — ~$32M in weekend three, #2
• Young Washington — ~$18M Angel Studios debut
• Supergirl — sinking fast in weekend two, down to fourth

Simple enough, until you notice the winner posted the worst opening in its franchise’s history and the runner-up is a three-week-old movie on the way down. This wasn’t a normal holiday weekend. Both Toy Story 5 and Supergirl had already launched back in June, so you can see where they first landed among June’s biggest Hollywood blockbusters.

Minions & Monsters: franchise-low opening, franchise-best reviews

Here’s the paradox nobody at Illumination saw coming. Minions & Monsters scored the best reviews in the studio’s history and the weakest opening the Despicable Me universe has ever posted. Same weekend.

The numbers: $39.5 million over three days and $64.5 million across the five-day frame — the lowest debut in franchise history, on an $85 million budget that needs roughly $212.5 million worldwide to break even (ScreenRant). Tracking had pegged the frame as high as $80 million just days earlier (Variety), a reminder that pre-weekend estimates and final receipts rarely line up. If you’ve ever wondered why, here’s how box office collections actually get counted.

For scale, Minions: The Rise of Gru launched to $123.1 million on the same July 4 slot in 2022 (The Hollywood Reporter). That’s not a dip. That’s a face-plant.

And the reviews? An A- CinemaScore and a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score make it the best-reviewed film Illumination has ever made, clear of the original Despicable Me’s 80% (Forbes). RogerEbert.com called it “a genuine triumph.” Great word of mouth, tiny opening. Go figure.

So what happened? Trade analysts pointed at a perfect storm of America’s 250th-anniversary celebrations, live World Cup matches, and a record heat dome that kept families indoors instead of at the multiplex (TheWrap). Once overseas receipts pile up, this one recovers. But “franchise-low” still stings on a brand this big.

Toy Story 5: still the bigger long-term winner

Don’t let the second-place finish fool you. Toy Story 5 is the real heavyweight of the weekend.

Pixar’s sequel opened to a franchise-record $160 million domestic and $312 million worldwide back on June 19, the year’s biggest debut (Variety). Its second weekend was the biggest in Pixar history at $70 million domestic, and it has already cleared $585 million worldwide on a $275 million budget (Koimoi). By this July 4 frame it crossed $600 million globally and is tracking toward $1.05–$1.2 billion (ScreenRant).

Put that in context. Toy Story 5’s second weekend alone out-earned Supergirl’s entire opening weekend. A legacy Pixar hold is playing a completely different sport than a shaky new tentpole. Woody and Buzz are climbing fast up Hollywood’s highest-grossing movies of 2026.

Supergirl’s second-weekend collapse

If Minions & Monsters had a rough weekend, Supergirl had a catastrophe.

The DC reboot opened to just $37.1 million domestic from around 3,600 theaters — under the studio’s own $50–55 million target — with a middling 56% on Rotten Tomatoes and a B- CinemaScore (Variety). Then weekend two fell off a cliff. Forbes projected a 73–80% drop to roughly $8.5–10 million, sinking the film to fourth place (Forbes).

That ranks among the ugliest second-weekend holds a comic-book movie has ever posted, behind only Joker: Folie à Deux’s 81% in 2024 and worse than The Marvels, Morbius and The Flash (CBR).

The math is brutal. A $170 million production plus $120 million in marketing needs about $300 million worldwide to break even, yet the realistic projection sits at $180–210 million — a loss creeping toward $100 million. DC Studios also reportedly tested its own edit against director Craig Gillespie’s cut back in March (CBR). Co-CEO Peter Safran struck a calm note: “While it didn’t meet our box office expectations, it’s just one component of a broader, long-term strategy at DC Studios that we remain confident in.”

Confident or not, the pressure now shifts to Superman: Man of Tomorrow to steady the ship.

Young Washington: the quiet Angel Studios sleeper

While the giants slugged it out, Angel Studios slipped a live round into the frame. Young Washington, directed by Jon Erwin, opened July 3 to $7.6 million on its first day from about 2,700 theaters (Wikipedia).

The three-day estimate landed near $18 million, with 81% of PostTrak audiences saying they’d “definitely recommend” it. Critics stayed lukewarm at 58% on Rotten Tomatoes. The crowd did not — a 92% audience score and an A CinemaScore tell a very different story (ScreenRant).

That gap between meh reviews and an ecstatic crowd is the exact pattern that turned Angel Studios’ Sound of Freedom into a $250 million word-of-mouth monster back in 2023 (Gold Derby). One more twist: the production leaned on generative AI for over 100 shots, from expanding sets to turning a 50-foot Ireland water tank into a sweeping river (World of Reel). Cheap to make, easy to recommend. Watch this one climb.

So, who actually won the weekend?

On the scoreboard, Minions & Monsters. In reality? Toy Story 5, and it isn’t close. Pixar’s giant out-grossed the actual “winner” in a single second weekend and is marching toward a billion. That’s the movie printing money this month.

Minions & Monsters is the odd one out — a hit’s reviews trapped inside a flop’s opening. Supergirl is the loss nobody can spin, whatever the executive-speak says. And Young Washington is the paisa vasool surprise of the four, the film that cost the least and sent the happiest crowd home.

So which one earned your ticket this weekend? We track every big release day by day, the same way we follow Hollywood tentpoles and Mohanlal’s Drishyam 3 collections. Bookmark this and check back, because these numbers are still moving.