The final installment in Universal and Amblin’s Jurassic
World trilogy easily won the weekend as audience sensation Top Gun: Maverick
fell to No. 2 in its third outing. Top Gun 2 continues to overperform, however,
as it approaches the $400 million mark domestically. The Paramount and Skydance
pic earned $50 million for a domestic total of $393.3 million and a jet-fueled
$747 million globally after adding another $52.7 million internationally.
Jurassic World Dominion came in narrowly behind 2018’s
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($148 million) and notably behind 2015’s
Jurassic World ($208.8 million), but boasts one of the biggest openings of the
pandemic era. It even beat Top Gun 2‘s three day opening of $126.7 million,
although it isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison since Maverick’s four day
launch was $260 million.
Critics ravaged the film, but audiences disagreed, giving it
an A- CinemaScore and solid exits on PostTrak. Jurassic World Dominion
presently has a 34 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest of any title in
the iconic dino series.
One advantage is that Dominion is taking away Imax and
premium large format screens from Top Gun: Maverick. Another advantage: Actors
Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill and BD Wong are reuniting for the first
time since starring in director Steven Spielberg’s first Jurassic Park (1993).
And a third: youngsters under 17 turned out in force (23
percent), signaling family appeal. The film skewed male (56 percent), while
nearly half of ticket buyers (46 percent) were between ages 18 and 34,
according to PostTrak. Higher-priced Imax and premium large format screens
accounted for a whopping 35 percent of the gross (Imax alone turned in $25
million). And 3D accounted for 25 percent of ticket sales.
Director and Jurassic World architect Colin Trevorrow, after
sitting out Fallen Kingdom, returned to helm Jurassic World Dominion, which is
the final title in the trilogy that has been anchored by actors Chris Pratt and
Bryce Dallas Howard.
This time out, the dinosaurs live — and hunt — alongside
humans all over the world. Jurassic World Dominion boasts never-seen dinosaurs
and new visual effects.
Overseas, the movie began opening in a raft of additional
markets this week for a foreign tally of $245 million (it first launched last
weekend in select territories).
Dominion is one of the few Hollywood tentpoles to get a
release date in China, where it opened to a promising $52.2 million. While
that’s behind Fallen Kingdom several years ago ($111 million), Dominion will
easily rank as the biggest Hollywood opening in China this year, topping The
Batman’s lackluster $12.1 million debut in March. (Some of 2022’s top Hollywood
earners like Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick and Marvel’s Doctor Strange and the
Multiverse of Madness have been denied China releases by Beijing regulators due
to political reasons.)
Dominion is contending with a far more depressed China film
market than when Fallen Kingdom played. Although many urban centers, including
Shanghai, are emerging from recent, economically damaging COVID lockdowns,
approximately 23 percent of cinemas across the country remain closed as a
public health precaution and consumer activity continues to be suppressed.
Elsewhere, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
placed third in its sixth weekend with $4.9 million for a domestic total of
$397.8 million and foreign tally of $532.4 million. The Marvel and Disney pic
is the first film of 2022 to cross $900 million, and finished Sunday with a
total of $930.2 million in ticket sales.
20th Century and Disney’s The Bob’s Burgers Movie came in
fourth with $2.3 million in its fourth weekend for a domestic tally of $27.1
million.
DreamWorks Animation and Universal’s The Bad Guys, released
almost two months ago, rounded out the top five domestically with $2.3 million
for a North American total of $91.5 million and $229.6 million globally.