The sequel easily wins the weekend, even while pacing well behind the debut of the first ‘Jurassic World’; ‘Gotti’ bombs and ‘Boundaries’ struggles following a tweet feud between Peter Fonda and the Trumps.
Universal and Amblin’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom did notably better than expected in its U.S. debut with $150 million, but still didn’t roar as loudly as its predecessor. Globally, the dinos have already grossed more than $700 million, putting the summer tentpole on course to join the billion-dollar club.
The sequel easily won the weekend ahead of Disney and Pixar’s Incredibles 2, which earned $81.9 million to boast the biggest second weekend in history for an animated film and one of the largest for any film. Incredibles 2 finished Sunday with a mighty 10-day cume of $350.3 million and an early worldwide tally of $485 million after earning another $56.8 million overseas from its first raft of markets.
There’s no doubt that Universal and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin are relieved that the dinos — who are fiercer and more varied than ever in the fifth installment of the franchise — fended off medicore reviews after winning over males and families, in particular. Heading into the weekend, tracking suggested Jurassic World 2 would open to $130 million.
The sequel, costing roughly $170 million to produce before marketing, now has a shot at hitting the $1 billion mark globally. Overseas — where Fallen Kingdom opened three weekends ago — the film took in another $561.5 million for a global total of $711.5 million. That includes $202.6 million from China alone.
In North America, Jurassic World 2 came in 28 percent behind Jurassic World, which opened in summer 2015 to a then-record $208.8 million. Jurassic World — benefiting from pent-up demand for a franchise that had long been absent from the big screen — scored the biggest domestic debut of all time when it was released in June 2015, a record it held until Star Wars: Force Awakens launched to $248 million six months later.
The 2015 film marked Unviersal’s best opening in history, not adjusted for inflation. Jurassic World 2 marks its second. It also scored the third-biggest opening of the year to date behind Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther and Incredibles 2, which debuted to a record-shattering $182.7 million last weekend.
Incredibles 2 fell roughly 56 percent in its sophomore outing, one of the bigger declines for a Pixar offering, although the bigger a film opens, the more it can fall. Also, Jurassic World 2 posed competition on the family front.
Elsewhere, a number of films achieved various milestones.
In its third weekend, Ocean’s 8 crossed the $100 million domestically upon placing No. 3 with $11.7 million. The female-led spinoff stayed ahead of fellow Warner Bros. offering Tag, which took in $8.2 million for a 10-day total of $30.4 million.
Fox and Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool 2, rounding out the top five domestically with $5 million-plus, jumped the $300 million mark in North America, and $700 million worldwide. The superhero sequel has now passed up It to become the third-biggest R-rated film of all time at the global box office behind the first Deadpool and 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded.
And, due to Incredibles 2 playing in drive-in theaters, Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time has cleared the $100 million mark at the domestic box office, a first for a black female director. The two films are playing together at drive-ins, with revenues split between them. A Wrinkle in Time, which is otherwise done with its theatrical run, had earned around $98 million before Incredibles 2 debuted last weekend.
Among other holdovers, John Travolta’s mob biopic Gotti is sinking fast. The indie mob film tumbled more than 54 percent in its second weekend to $812,000 from 466 theaters (the film lost 37 cinemas). Gotti’s cume is $3.3 million.
Like Gotti, Sony Pictures Classics’ Boundaries, a feel-good dramedy starring Vera Farmiga and Christopher Plummer, also sparked headlines last week after Peter Fonda, who plays a supporting role in the specialty film, made a disparaging tweet about Barron Trump, son of President Donald Trump. Fonda later deleted the tweet and apologized, but that didn’t stop First Lady Melania Trump’s office from notifying the Secret Service, while Donald Trump Jr. questioned why Sony Classics wasn’t taking action.
Sony Classics followed up with a statement saying Fonda’s tweet was “abhorrent and reckless,” but that it wouldn’t alter the film, or pull its release, since that would penalize the rest of the crew and cast.
Boundaries didn’t make much of a mark, earning an estimated $29,000 from five theaters for a lackluster screen average of $5,800.
Other new offerings at the specialty box office included Magnolia’s Damsel, an indie Western starring Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska. Damsel, debuting in three theaters, likewise posted a lackluster screen average of roughly $7,000.
More to come.
Let’s block ads! (Why?)