Spider-Man. Jurassic Park. Despicable Me. Moviegoers heading to air-conditioned theaters during the Fourth of July holiday can rely on seeing one of those Sony, Universal or Illumination franchises on the marquee over the past 25 years. And count on Despicable spinoff Minions & Monsters to put up big numbers for 5-day grosses this year, given the Toy Story-levels of goodwill for that series.<\/p>\n
But when zeroing in on the question of single-day grosses (i.e. receipts from the July 4 day itself) there\u2019s a leader that happens to be none of the above. It\u2019s also a title that launched a big-screen franchise that keeps rumbling on in theaters since it arrived 19 years ago in July. Fittingly for the holiday, it\u2019s also a Michael Bay movie. Paramount and Hasbro\u2019s Transformers (2007), starring Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, still leads the way among top-grossing titles on the July 4 holiday with $29 million for the day, not adjusted for inflation. As per Rentrak figures prepared for The Hollywood Reporter, here are the other top titles:<\/p>\n
Browsing the single-day grosses, a few details stand out: There\u2019s only a few non-sequels on the list (if we\u2019re including Transformers, which is pre-branded IP and did hit the big screen in 1986 in animated form). Disney hasn\u2019t leveraged the release frame for its tentpoles in the same way that Sony, Universal and Paramount have. Will Smith\u2019s star power propelled non-sequel superhero title Hancock and the Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise pairing helped push War of the Worlds into tentpole territory. There\u2019s also one indie, Sound of Freedom, which put Angel Studios on the map back when it broke out just a few years ago in 2023.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s many ways to slice the numbers for the July 4 frame beyond single-day. There\u2019s 6-day grosses, where 2004\u2019s Tobey Maguire actioner Spider-Man 2 once held the all-time record with a haul of $180 million, besting then-leaders The Matrix: Reloaded and the first Spider-Man big screen foray. Or you could stack individual movies together to determine the busiest year for moviegoers at the July 4 holiday weekend through history. That would be 2013, which saw the Minions run wild as Despicable Me 2 opened and Friday-Sunday saw all movies gross a combined $230.5 million.<\/p>\n