The big new release news occurred outside of North America, as Universal/Comcast Corp.’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom earned $151.1 million in its foreign debut, including $8m from IMAX alone. While the film doesn’t open in North America until June 22, it launched in 48 markets over the last five days. This was partially about avoiding the FIFA World Cup which starts this week and will be event TV for the next month and partially about admitting that this one would probably hold up better compared to its predecessor outside of North America.
Although, speculation alert, I must wonder if they might have opened in North America this weekend had they realized that Solo: A Star Wars Story was going to be such a relative non-entity. If you recall, Jurassic World opened in much of the world at the same time in June of 2015, snagging a then-record $208 million domestic debut weekend and a then-record $525m global launch. This time out, it’ll be opening in essentially three waves over last week, this week and next week.
It opens in China on June 15, where it will hope to match/exceed the last film’s $99 million debut and $229m total in what is now the biggest moviegoing marketplace in the world. Avengers: Infinity War and A Quiet Place getting an extension into July won’t help matters, but that might be mere trivia regarding the dinosaur sequel. Still, the $170m sequel just nabbed $151,1m in its first six days, with plenty more left to dig up, so all parties should be happy now.
The first wave of reviews was mixed-positive, and they weren’t exceptionally superlative. That is just one reason no one should expect a repeat of the last film’s $652 million domestic/$1.672 billion global totals. Also factoring in is that Fallen Kingdom is the first Jurassic Park movie in three years, not 14 years like last time. Oh, and the notion of a fully-functioning dino park was a killer hook last time out. As far as taglines line, “the park is open” > “the park is gone.”
That’s especially true in North America, where it may merely do about ($130-$150m opening, $325-$350m total) what we all expected the first Jurassic World to do three years ago. Again, this J.A. Bayona-directed island adventure/monster-in-the-house thriller can (like Universal’s other big summer sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in mid-July) make a lot less than the last film and still be a big hit. And with Walt Disney’s Solo striking out, it’s the big live-action overseas giant until Disney’s Ant-Man and the Wasp in early July. Media & Entertainment
