MINIONS HIT A BANANA PEEL AT HOME—BUT RULE THE WORLD!

Talk about a tale of two box offices! "Minions & Monsters," the new "Despicable Me" prequel set in Roaring Twenties Tinseltown, arrived with a thud stateside—earning just $61 million over its five-day opening, marking the franchise's weakest U.S. debut ever. (For comparison, "Despicable Me 4" kicked off with $122 million two years ago.) Even over the traditional weekend, it nabbed only $39 million from 4,243 theaters. Ouch!

But hold your minion merchandise! While American audiences showed signs of yellow fatigue, the rest of the planet had other plans. The film raked in a whopping $85 million internationally over the weekend alone, bringing its worldwide total to a cool $146.4 million globally in just its opening frame across 72 territories. According to Variety and Deadline, that's enough to keep the little guys firmly in the box office driver's seat—and to hit a cumulative $98 million overseas to date.

So is the minions craze finally losing steam, or did stateside audiences just need a holiday break? The film's well-reviewed script and exotic 1920s setting clearly played better abroad, proving that Illumination's famous yellow squad still has serious international juice, even if American moviegoers are ready for a breather from all those "Bah-bah-bahs!"