In case you were living under a rock last weekend, “Jurassic World” crushed it at the box office, opening with a monster $208 million, the highest grossing domestic weekend debut ever, and knocking Marvel’s “The Avengers” down to the number two position. And Universal’s dinosaur film continues to smash records. On Friday it became the fastest domestic film to reach $300 million (less than a week, and it will soon do the same for the $400M mark), and this weekend, the blockbuster grossed another $106 million. This puts it just about a million shy from “The Avengers,” which still holds the record for highest grossing second weekend ever. Update: Initial reports pegged "Jurassic World at $102 million, but the estimates were off and Universal posted a $106 million weekend: this breaks "The Avengers record for all-time highest grossing second weekend totals. Suffice it to say, “Jurassic World” is gargantuan at the box office and continues blanket the earth like a huge rolling prehistoric volcano cloud.
READ MORE: The Good, The Bad & The Weird Of ‘Jurassic World’
In theaters for two weeks and currently at $981.3 million worldwide, the Colin Trevorrow-directed film is on pace to become the fastest film to ever hit $1 billion (“Furious 7” currently holds that record: 17 days). Update: That’s a wrap, in just 13 days, "Jurassic World" has become the fastest film of all time to hit the $1 billion mark.
At nearly $400 million at home, and dropping only 51% (a good number for a huge tentpole that most audiences see in week one), the movie is tracking to hit $650 million domestically and $1.6 billion globally. If it hits those figures it should become the second highest grossing film domestically ever, above “Titanic" ("Titanic" earned $600 million domestically, but tacked on another $58 million with the 2012 3D re-release), but still beneath “Avatar.” Worldwide, $1.6M would place the film at the third highest grossing film of all time. These are staggering figures.
One has to wonder if Trevorrow might be re-considering his plans to not direct the sequel considering how much this has launched him into the stratosphere. We’ll assume that despite the director’s thoughts that this series isn’t easily franchise-able, Universal is going to rain down sequels, or at least their development, immediately.
And they say the domestic box-office is ailing. While that’s generally true, Universal and Disney gave it a shot in the arm this weekend. Pixar’s "Inside Out" was a massive hit, grossing $91 million in its debut weekend; the highest grossing opening for a film not based on a book, comic, franchise, brand, etc., and Pixar’s second highest debut after "Toy Story 3." So the North American audience is essentially saying, look they’re tired of most of the blockbusters out there, but when something does connect they will come out in droves. Considering Pixar’s really delved into the sequel business of late (“The Incredibles” and “Finding Nemo” both have sequels coming), it shouldn’t be a surprise if they launch a second adventure inside the brain of the tweener Riley. The ‘J World,’ “Inside Out” one-two punch combined for nearly $200 million ($193M), and the rest of the box-office was healthy as well.
Fox’s comedy “Spy” has got solid legs. The movie dropped an incredibly low 32.8% and has nearly hit the $75 million mark in three weeks. Likewise, "San Andreas" posted an amazing Rock-like hold, only faling 23% in week four. The movie has crossed $132 million at home, and worldwide, it’s zeroing in on $400 million and should cross that threshold when international numbers arrive later today.
Of all the new wide releases this weekend, Open Road Films‘ entertaining "black nerds" crime caper "Dope" (our review) just couldn’t compete. On 2,000 screens, the movie made $6 million, which marks a very low $3,006 per screen average.
In box-office top 10 milestones, “Pitch Perfect 2” is closing in on $300 million worldwide, and “Mad Max: Fury Road” should surpass $350 million globally soon. "Avengers Age Of Ultron" is now at $1.3 billion worldwide, making for the fifth-highest grossing film of all time and the second highest grossing super hero movie of all time. Domestically it just doesn’t have the same horsepower as the original, which hit $623 million in 2012. Currently sitting at $451 million at home, it’s about tapped out in terms of greater at-home advances (maybe it can hit $470 by the time it finally wraps up). Disney‘s already posted a huge write off on "Tomorrowland," and while the movie has hit almost $200 million worldwide, it cost $200 million to make and a reported $150 million to market worldwide (factor in the 55/45 theater/studio split and you’ve got a cooked goose). While the film held on decently in week five (-42.5%), “Tomorrowland” will fall out of the top 10 next weekend and will fail to hit the $100 million mark in North America.
While the box office may have been healthy, the specialty market is currently struggling. Aside from The Orchard‘s "The Overnight" — "sex" comedy helps — which grossed a strong $61,523 from three theaters for a very good $20,507 per screen average, its competitors were hurting. In limited release, Sony Pictures Classics debuted "Infinitely Polar Bear," Broadgreen Pictures launched the excellent French house music coming of age film "Eden," and IFC Films opened with David Gordon Green‘s Al Pacino-starring "Manglehorn," but all of them failed to post significant numbers. Not one film could hit the acceptable 10K per screen average, but “Infinitely Polar Bear” came close with a $9,400 PSA. From 3 screens, “Eden” posted $20,000 for a $6,667 per screen average and “Manglehorn” grossed a low $13,000 from three screens for a pretty awful $4,333 PSA. Perhaps because of the advent of VOD, Green’s films in particular haven’t had good numbers of late, but at least the weekend is up from the $2,206 PSA low that Green hit in 2014 with the Nicolas Cage-starring “Joe.” Let’s hope that all these worthwhile indies are at least doing decent comparable business on VOD and DVD. We’re lesser without them.
1. Jurassic World — $102,019,000 ($398,230,000)
2. Inside Out — $91,056,000
3. Spy — $10,500,000 ($74,374,000)
4. San Andreas — $8,240,000 ($132,229,000)
5. Dope — $6,018,000
6. Insidious Chapter 3 — $4,110,000 ($45,370,000)
7. Pitch Perfect 2 — $3,300,000 ($177,500,000)
8. Mad Max: Fury Road — $2,815,000 ($143,602,000)
9. Avengers: Age of Ultron — $2,723,000 ($451,039,000)
10. Tomorrowland — $2,009,000 ($87,696,000)