‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ Begins With A Stomping Start At The Box Office On Thursday

One of the biggest summer blockbusters that movie-goers have been waiting for is Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and the prehistoric era finally arrived on Thursday night. Universal was hoping for a big outing from the film and it most certainly did not disappoint on the first night of its opening weekend. For Thursday night openings, the sequel to the 2015 hit ended up taking in $15.3 million for the early previews.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opened in 3,600 theaters domestically on Thursday night and that’s a great take, but it didn’t beat its predecessor. As reported by Box Office Mojo, Jurassic World‘s previews brought in $18.5 million in its opening Thursday night three years ago.

As of now, Fallen Kingdom is on pace to have an opening weekend of anywhere from $130 million to $140 million, and that’s nothing to be upset about at all. The only problem is that everyone is going to keep comparing it to the first film and it had the monstrous opening weekend of $208.8 million which is just absurd.

One thing that a lot of people need to do is stop comparing it to Jurassic World because sequels always have that drop-off. An opening weekend around $140 million is quite phenomenal and it means that the dinosaur franchise is not going to stop anytime soon.

When it comes to franchises, though, people are always going to compare a sequel to the films that came before it. It’s hard not to do that when you look at a site like Rotten Tomatoes which gave Jurassic World a 71 percent and Fallen Kingdom has opened with just a 51 percent.

Universal Studios isn’t going to take a loss, though, and that is clearly evident by how Thursday night openings went. It is very likely that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom will take the top spot this weekend and knock the juggernaut that is Pixar’s Incredibles II down into the second spot.

Opening next weekend will be Escape Plan 2: Hades and Sicario: Day of the Soldado which means it is quite possible to see Fallen Kingdom in the top spot for consecutive weekends. Once Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp opens on July 6, though, that could all change.

As far as the box office history goes for the Jurassic Park/World franchise, here are their worldwide totals:

• Jurassic Park (1993) – $1.029 billion
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) – $618.64 million
• Jurassic Park III (2001) – $368.78 million
• Jurassic World (2015) – $1.67 billion

While it may not end up living up to the film that came before it or the one that started it all, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom got off to a really great start. Universal Studios can’t be upset about $15.3 million for Thursday night previews and they won’t be disappointed with a possible $140 million opening weekend. Now, it’s just going to take time to see what kind of lasting power Chris Pratt and the dinosaurs have in theaters.