'The Secret Life Of Pets 2' Set To Soar Past 'Dark Phoenix' With $65 Million Opening

Superheroes can't stop the super franchise that is The Secret Life of Pets. The Secret Life of Pets 2 box office tracking shows that Universal's animated sequel is head toward $65 million during the June 7-9 weekend, soaring past its main competitor, Dark Phoenix, which is only tracking for $50 million.

Variety reports that The Secret Life of Pets 2 is set to net as much as $65 million domestic box office on its opening weekend, likely beating out Dark Phoenix, the latest (and almost certainly last) X-Men movie from 20th Century Fox.

Though The Secret Life of Pets 2 will likely outrun all of its competitors on opening weekend, its projected box office numbers are still significantly lower than those of the original The Secret Life of Pets, which opened in 2016 with $104.3 million domestically and wound up with $368.3 million in North America and $875 million worldwide. With John Wick: Chapter 3 gaining so much steam this weekend, I wonder if The Secret Life of Pets 2 had kept Lynch's scrapped "dog party" scene in their film, they'd get an even bigger opening weekend.

However, it's still not a bad opening range: if it makes the expected amount, The Secret Life of Pets 2 would be one of the highest-grossing animated openings since Illumination's Dr. Seuss' The Grinch last year, which opened to $67.6 million.

Meanwhile, things aren't looking so bright for Dark Phoenix. The fourth film in the soft-rebooted X-Men series, Dark Phoenix stars Sophie Turner as the titular Jean Grey after she is transformed into an all-powerful cosmic being. The film is the latest X-Men film after Bryan Singer's disastrous X-Men: Apocalypse opened to only $65 million in its first three days and nearly $80 million over the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend in 2016. And with the number that it's projected to gross in its opening weekend, it will probably be its last, especially following Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox and potential plans to introduce the X-Men into its' Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sadly, it seems like Fox's X-Men franchise, which once burned so bright, will likely go out in a puff of smoke.

The Secret Life of Pets 2 and Dark Phoenix both open on June 7, 2019.