Big, mean and making the green: ‘Jurassic’ tops North America box offices
“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” took $150m in North American theaters during its opening weekend. Image: Universal Pictures via AFP
Huge, green and scary stomped on cute, young and funny in North American theaters this weekend as new release “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” took in a healthy $150 million to leap past last weekend’s leader, “Incredibles 2”.
The dinosaur sequel, from Pixar and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment studio, fell short of the then-record $208 million opening by the last “Jurassic” movie in 2015, according to figures released Sunday by industry tracker Exhibitor Relations.
Still, “Fallen Kingdom” has passed the $700 million mark worldwide — this despite tepid reviews like the New York Times’ suggestion that the film is little more than “a way for people with no other plans to grab some air-conditioning.”
The movie stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard as they try to rescue genetically-recreated dinosaurs from a volcano-threatened island and move them to — why not? — a sprawling California mansion. Might some of them escape into the world? Might pteranodons fly around the Eiffel Tower? Who knows?
Sliding to second over the three-day weekend, Disney’s “Incredibles 2” still earned a respectable $80.9 million as the North American box office continued a recovery from last summer’s downturn.
The film, about a quirky superhero family, had raked in $182 million in its debut weekend, a record for an animation in the US and Canada, easily surpassing the $135 million debut of 2016’s “Finding Dory”.
The film tells the story of the Parr family— centered this time on matriarch Helen (Holly Hunter) as she battles to help bring the world’s hiding superheroes back into the open, while husband Bob (Craig T. Nelson), left at home in charge of their frighteningly talented but scarily unpredictable kids, finds the homemaker’s job more challenging than that of superhero.
In third spot was Warner Bros.’s heist flick “Ocean’s 8”, at $11.7 million. Its female-centric cast has Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) assembling a gang of talented women (Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter) to plan a seemingly impossible diamond heist from the Met Gala in New York.
Adult comedy “Tag”, also from Warner Bros., came in fourth at $8.2 million. It tells the story of childhood pals (led by Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner) who keep up a game of cross-country tag for decades, sometimes at the oddest of moments.
Staying alive in fifth was “Deadpool 2”, the R-rated superhero flick from Fox, at $5.3 million. It stars Ryan Reynolds as the irreverent, foul-mouthed title character.
Rounding out the top 10 were:
“Solo: A Star Wars Story” ($4 million)
“Hereditary” ($3.8 million)
“Superfly” ($3.4 million)
“Avengers: Infinity War” ($2.5 million)
“Book Club” ($920,000). CC
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