Now there's a shocker. The third sequel in the Jurassic Park franchise just blew open the record books with $204 million over the three day weekend- something no one expected, with most surprised it was tracking for a possible $100 million opener a few weeks ago. That's the second biggest opening of all time, and with actuals to come in Monday there's a very real chance it will earn enough to surpass the $207 million The Avengers earned in 2012, to become the biggest opening weekend ever. Why did this happen? Well, I guess I can speak for the majority of this audience, since I too was about 6 or 7 when the original JP came out. Forget the sequels, that first movie left a very real impact on my generation, one that apparently hasn't let up in the slightest. This is all about nostalgia, folks. Never mind the fact that the dinosaurs for some reason have never looked as good as they did in that first movie- this is entirely about wanting to relive how it felt when we saw the first Jurassic Park in theaters, which was something of a transformative experience for a lot of little kids.
I say we, but I didn't even see it this weekend, because even though I'll never forget every frame of the first one either, I don't expect anything in this one to live up to or have anything to do with the original, really. If I wanted to relive that, I'd probably watch it on blu-ray (which there's no need to because I've seen it so many times I probably have it memorized from the VHS copy I wore out years ago). But, with this incredible feat, I think you can expect revivals of a lot of 90's phenomenons to start making their way to theaters, because that's the only explanation for how this happened. It's not Chris Pratt's star power, although with this kind of success, we can expect him to become one of the biggest new movie stars in a while, coming right after Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah, he'll be sticking around. In other news, Spy held relatively well in second place, while San Andreas, Insidious and Pitch Perfect 2 rounded out the top five. But the weekend belonged to the island of Isla Nublar once more.
Top 5:
- Jurassic World- $204.6 million
- Spy- $16 million
- San Andreas- $11 million
- Insidious Chapter 3- $7.3 million
- Pitch Perfect 2- $6 million
In limited news, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl had a decent start on 15 screens with a $14k average, but not a spectacular debut, coming off the Sundance jury prize. Meanwhile, Love & Mercy has been doing well, making it into the top ten for a cumulative gross of $4 million so far. Next week, Pixar's Inside Out will have to go up against Jurassic World, while the indie releases of another Sundance hit Dope, and Mark Ruffalo's Infinitely Polar Bear come out. Expect the dinos to keep hold of #1, unless the nostalgia craze was only good for one weekend.
