Weekend box office: Jurassic World could have the second biggest opening of all time

Brad Sturdivant June 14th, 2015

When JURASSIC PARK opened this weekend back in 1993, it was a huge spectacle. For many of us in our 30’s, it was the first “event” movie we saw, setting the stage for many summer blockbusters to come. The original JURASSIC PARK opened to about $47 million, which was a lot for the time. That was 22 years ago and we’re on the fourth Jurassic film and although I knew JURASSIC WORLD (click the link to read our review) was tracking really high, I didn’t expect it to flirt with $200 million at the weekend box office. But that’s exactly what it’s doing and with the strong word of mouth helping the film out, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it actually hit that mark. It probably doesn’t have enough steam to hit $207 million, which is what it would need to beat THE AVENGERS and have the biggest opening of all time, but it should be able to break $191 million and beat AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON for the second spot. But no matter what it ends up with, there’s no denying it’s an impressive achievement for Universal.

Next week sees the release of Pixar’s INSIDE OUT, which has some fantastic trailers and looks like it’s going to get Pixar back to heartfelt, quality animated films. But I don’t see it beating out JURASSIC WORLD. Even if JURASSIC WORLD loses 60% of its audience, that still puts it around $80 million next week, which should be enough to beat out INSIDE OUT. But it will be a close race and INSIDE OUT should at least give the little kids something to see while everyone else watches the movie where dinosaurs savagely eat people. Note: the numbers below will be updated as they become final.

UPDATE: Wow, so JURASSIC WORLD not only grabbed the #2 biggest domestic weekend ever with $204 million, but it managed to be the largest international opening ever with over $511 million. The only surprise so far is that Universal hasn’t greenlighted the sequel yet.

1. Jurassic World $204.6m

2. Spy $16m

3. San Andreas $11m

4. Insidious Chapter 3 $7.3m

5. Pitch Perfect 2 $6m

6. Entourage $4.3m

7. Mad Max: Fury Road $4.1m

8. Avengers: Age of Ultron $3.6m

9. Tomorrowland $3.4m

10. Love & Mercy $1.7m

(Deadline)