


People showed up Wednesday, on opening day, to watch “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” the fourth “Jurassic World” sequel to the three “Jurassic Park” films based on the long-passed Michael Crichton novel that Steven Spielberg turned into a dino-blockbuster in the ’90s.
The latest CGI dino film clocked an impressive $30.5 million opening day, per Deadline.com.
A lot of people showed up for the film Thursday, this being a holiday week with Universal treating it like a five day weekend. Add another $25 million to its running domestic box office tally, and that produced a whopping $147 million by midnight Sunday.
Seven “Jurassic” films, an animated spin-off series, and the punters will still line up to gape in awe at…another slack-jawed movie star as she stage-whispers “RUN!” Go figure.
Scarlett Johansson takes the big paycheck as the big name in this rendition of CGI dinosaurs running amok. That should keep Colin Jost in the style to which he’s become accustomed.
Reviews have been mixed to poor, as you might expect from the most repetitive franchise this side of “Halloween.” But it’s on a lot of screens, many many IMAX screens among them. Anything less than an $80 million 3-day weekend and they’d be shuttering movie theaters. The blowback from “Elio” bombing is that bad.
“Rebirth,” which is getting less-than-enthusiastic Cinemascore ratings from paying customers leaving the theater, has little prayer of catching the live-action (plus CGI) “Lilo & Stitch” remake, the Lion King of this summer is closing in on $1 billion worldwide (over $400 million in North America).
“F1” finished its second weekend with over $26 million more in the books. It cleared the $100 million mark Saturday and has earned over $109 million without being a sequel. Who knew?
The “How to Train Your Dragon” remake took third place ($11 million), the Pixar bomb “Elio” picked up another $5.7, the fast-fading “28 Years Later” made over $4 in its last weekend in the top five.The Danny Boyle zombie sequel won’t come close to reaching the $100 million mark, as $75 seems more like where it will wind up when it loses its screens. It sat at $60 million midnight Sunday.
“Lilo & Stitch,” the live action remake, is the year’s biggest hit, now standing at over $408 million in North America alone.
The horror bomb/sequel “M3GAN 2.0” fell off a cliff on its second weekend, lapping up $3.8 in sixth place, fading fast.
“Mission: Impossible — Final Reckoning” is on track to end its run under $200 million, sneaking over the $191 mark Sunday night.
“Ballerina” fell out of the top ten and may hit $60 million by the end of its run.
For those keeping score at home, that’s eight blockbuster sequels or remakes and just two original content pictures feeding the masses in this stretch of the summer. Something to think about as you’re wasting money on more dinosaurs, more zombies and remakes of animated kids movies that didn’t need to be remade.
