Minions ruled the weekend box office, racking up a massive $115.2 million in North America, for the second biggest animated film opening in history.

The Universal and Illumination Entertainment spin-off to Despicable Me just missed the domestic record set by Shrek the Third’s $121.6 million kickoff in 2007, while continuing animation maestro Chris Meledandri’s hot streak at the multiplexes. What makes Meledandri so valuable to studios is that he keeps budgets low. Minions cost $74 million to produce, a modest number considering that Pixar and DreamWorks Animation routinely spend north of $100 million on their animated features.

The studio left nothing to chance when it came to reminding moviegoers why the loved the nattering, mischievous, highlighter-hued critters. Universal partnered with the likes of Snapchat, McDonald’s, and Amazon to deliver nearly $600 million in publicity and promotions, according to a recent article by Bloomberg. The titular characters were ubiquitous popping up on everything from Twinkies to Chiquita bananas.

Minions was such a behemoth that two newcomers, Self/Less and The Gallows, risked getting washed away. Of them, The Gallows fared better, picking up $10 million, across 2,720 locations. The Warner Bros found footage chiller cost less than $2 million to make, so it could be profitable.

Focus Features’ Self/Less was not so fortunate, picking up roughly $5.4 million from 1,953 locations. The science-fiction thriller about a radical medical procedure is the latest film fumble for Ryan Reynolds, who is still labouring to get out from under the massive flops that were The Green Lantern and R.I.P.D. The good news for the actor is that a trailer for Deadpool, his upcoming R-rated comic book adaptation, rocked the Comic-Con crowd. Box office redemption may be nigh.