Before we get to the newcomers over this Fourth of July box office weekend, we must acknowledge the holdovers. It was a tight race between Jurassic World and Pixar’s Inside Out, but in the end the animated family-feature narrowly edged out the genetically modified dinosaurs for the top spot. With $29.7 million, Inside Out bested Jurassic World by just over $500,000, stealing what would have been a fourth weekend at #1 and what would have been Universal’s second film of the year to repeat at #1 four times in a row after Furious 7. Winning four weekends in a row isn’t an easy feat, doing it twice in one year is even more impressive considering the last time it happened was 2012 when The Hunger Games pulled the fourpeat and, before that, it was The Dark Knight in 2008.
Jurassic World is now at $556.5 million domestically and it’s just a matter of time before it bests The Avengers for the third all-time highest grossing domestic release as it sits just $66.8 million behind the Marvel success. Hell, at this point it’s only $102 million behind Titanic, which seems something of a possibility at this point.
As for the week’s new releases, Terminator Genisys managed $27 million, $42.4 million since opening on Wednesday along with its “B+” CinemaScore. To put that into some perspective, when Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines opened on the exact same weekend back in 2003, beginning its run on Wednesday, with early screenings on Tuesday evening, it managed $72.3 million in five days before ending its domestic run at $150.3 million. I don’t expect Genisys will even cross $100 million at this point, which makes me wonder if Paramount will even move forward on the newly planned trilogy. I guess there are always international numbers, but will they be enough to save this one?
Terminator Salvation did manage to make $246 million internationally, but even that one enjoyed $125 million at the domestic box office and it was a bust from the start. Perhaps it’s time to put the Terminator franchise to rest? After all, this is the worst debut for any of the Terminator sequels.
Magic Mike XXL looked promising after kicking things off with $9.3 million on Wednesday along with an “A-” CinemaScore, but it appears it blew its wad a little too soon. Audiences had their fill before the weekend rolled around and after $6.3 million on Friday, the film could only muster $6.5 million over Saturday and Sunday on its way to a $12.8 million weekend, $27.8 million cume since its Wednesday release. One amazing number is the fact the movie played to 96% female audiences, which means 4% of the audience probably had a pretty good weekend.
Fortunately for the low budget sequel, while $27.8 million over five-and-a-half days is far worse than the first film’s $39 million opening, the target audience seems to be eating it up and doubling your budget out of the gates is never a bad thing. When it comes to what I’m sure will be a Magic Mike 3 they can expect similar returns. So while the number is disappointing by comparison, it’s pretty good in the long run.
Then we get to last weekend’s new releases beginning with Ted 2, which clearly doesn’t have the stamina of the original, dropping 67% to $11.1 million and a current domestic total of $58.5 million. The first film only dropped 41% in its second weekend as it crossed the $119 million mark. Seems audiences have finally caught on to what I was saying back in 2012.
Last weekend’s new release, Max, dropped 42% for a second weekend of $6.6 million and a cume now up to $25.3 million for the family-targeted feature.
Next weekend brings to theaters The Gallows, Self/less and Jurassic World‘s run at #1 is about to end, but no worries, it will be at the hands of yet another Universal release, Minions. Talk about an amazing year for one studio. Two billion dollar features already and I have to thing Minions might make it three.
