Women power 'Finding Dory' to box office history with $136.2 million

LOS ANGELES — Finding Dory might've arrived on Father's Day weekend, but it was women who pushed the Pixar sequel to a record $136.2 million in domestic box office.

Dory now stands as the biggest animated U.S. opening of all time, overtakingShrek the Third, which bowed to $121.6 million in 2007. It was also Pixar's biggest debut weekend to date, with the previous high being Toy Story 3 ($110.3 million in 2010).

According to ComScore, women made up 62% of the Finding Dory audience, a heavy female tilt for a four-quadrant family film on one of the year's biggest weekends for cinemas. And many were moms bringing along the kids, of course — maybe dads were getting some precious alone time?— as 66% of the audience was under 25.

(Think of it this way — if only as many women showed up for Dory in the U.S. as did men, the film would've made something like $103.5 million.

And just as everyone and their blogger was declaring the death of the summer sequel, Finding Dory went and doubled up Finding Nemo, which came in at $70.2 million in 2003.