With a very strong $3.7M from Thursday shows, Inside Out seems as if it is set for one of the highest second place debuts ever, perhaps only behind the adjusted gross of The Day After Tomorrow at around $85M. Interestingly, in that scenario, the big budget disaster film was in second and the animated film in its second weekend took the top spot; the polar opposite of this situation.

With exceptionally strong early word of mouth, Pixar buzz and almost perfect critical scores, its no surprise that Pixars first film in two years had such a solid start. The only other Pixar film to do this well on Thursday was Toy Story 3, but that was a very different story (pun fully intended). For one, that was incredibly more hyped than Inside Out. Also, those were solely from midnight showings making it a much more impressive number. However, it is much harder to estimate the weekend based on Thursday numbers for a family film because the majority audience will show up on Saturday or Friday matinees.

Also premiering tonight was indie comedy Dope, which scored a decent $425K from 8PM showings. Whats surprising is that a film of this type got a release in over 2,000 theaters in the middle of June, instead of a more traditional release, premiering in a few hundred theaters and going from there.

Updated Predictions

Inside Out – $75.5M

Dope – $7M

More updates to come…