People. Really. Fucking. Love. Dinosaurs. And Other Box Office News.
I told you back in 2015, I told you again in 2018, and I’m telling you once again in 2022 since y’all still don’t seem to believe me. People fucking love dinosaurs. People also fucking love the only dinosaur movies Hollywood wants to make for some reason in spite of the fact that only the very first one of them from nearly 30 years ago was actually any good. Ergo, nobody has any right to be surprised that Jurassic World Dominion – no, apparently there really is no colon in that title and I do not know why – posted the second-biggest opening weekend of the year in spite of some truly noxious critical notices.
What is surprising, at least to me, is that Dominion was only $3 million off of Fallen Kingdom’s opening weekend from four years ago, notching up $145 million compared to its predecessor’s $148 million in spite of the four-year layoff and, well, everything that happened in Fallen Kingdom. Considering that Fallen Kingdom shed $60 mil compared to the first Jurassic World’s (at-the-time) record-smashing $208 mil opening weekend, the near-identical lay-up performed by Dominion is a real testament to just how much the promise of dinos munching stupid humans can bring us all together no matter how much the Colin Trevorrow-ness of it all tries otherwise.
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Of course, domestic openings only tell one half of the story when it comes to the mega-blockbusters, nowadays, and Dominion had one major ace up its sleeve that an increasing number of Hollywood heavy-hitters did not for one reason or another: a Chinese release. In some territories, Dominion actually opened a week early and, unsurprisingly, worldwide audiences also can’t get enough of dinosaurs threatening to eat tasty boring humans. The film’s already up to $245.8 million overseas, with a cool $52.5 mil of that from China alone.
This would be where I compare the overseas debuts of this and Fallen Kingdom to see if we can deduce some kind of hot clickbait DISCOURSE-fuelling narrative to munch on until Lightyear in seven days, but that’s not quite possible. Or, more specifically, it is technically possible but requires so many asterisks and qualifiers as to be completely meaningless. By the time of Fallen Kingdom’s US release, it had already racked up some $561 million overseas but with the major caveat that the US was literally the second-to-last market that the film opened in, three weeks after the international rollout began. Whereas Dominion opened only one week early in non-American territories so the numbers are still just getting started.
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So, yeah, people still love dinosaurs. So much so that Dominion has yet again scored an “A-” Cinemascore and taken a mite bigger than expected bite out of the valiantly-hanging-in-there Top Gun: Maverick, although that may be more due to Maverick losing some of those fancy premium IMAX and 4DX screens everyone loves for some reason. Glad to know that some things remain reliably constant in the last four years of terrifying uncertainty and weird change. I was an entirely different gender when I last reported on Jurassic Park movies! And I still don’t have a Dino Crisis remake, CAPCOM! COME ON! THIS IS CLEARLY EASY MONEY YOU’RE LEAVING ON THE TABLE!
Still alive after doing 5 gigs in 7 days. Barely. Here’s your low-energy Full List.
US Box Office Results: Friday 10th June 2022 – Sunday 12th June 2022
1] Jurassic World Dominion
$145,075,625 / NEW
Not seeing til this weekend so maybe I’ll get an answer in the film but, for real, why is there no colon in the title?! It’s bugging the Grammar Constable side of me because, just, WHY?! The park is not a sovereign or government so the world can’t be its dominion, and if it’s being used in the “control” sense then “Dominion” over what?! I DON’T UNDERSTAND! This is like when Michael Bay runs studio logos twice at the start of his most recent movies; just the pettiest thing that my brain is utterly fixated on and bewildered by!
$51,855,344 / $395,199,280
Last week, Kelechi Ehenulo decided to use her vacation time to go and cover part of the Sundance London Film Festival for us, because we writers have different ideas of what “vacation time” entails. We’ll be rolling her pieces out over the next two weeks, but we lead off with a film which releases this Friday! Sophie Hyde’s sex-positive alt-rom-com Good Luck to You, Leo Grande and, no, you don’t pronounce the “e” in any way.
3] Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
$5,215,065 / $398,137,923
I saw two people on Reddit describe Ms. Marvel as “Scott Pilgrim-esque” and “like a live-action Mitchells vs. the Machines” which are precisely the kinds of phrases that vault something I may have checked out at some point right to the very top of my watchlist once I’m done having to catch-up on the work I put off all last week. Will they be accurate? Mostly likely not, but my curiosity has been piqued and my attention got nonetheless!
4] The Bad Guys
$2,533,380 / $91,810,825
Yeah, I’m gonna need a firm release date for The Plucky Squire right this second please.
5] The Bob’s Burgers Movie
$2,466,496 / $27,215,036
Yet another They Might Be Giants album hit an anniversary milestone last week, as their first official children’s record NO! turned 20. Naturally, Lee Thacker was right on the case with a commemorative write-up. On a related note: best wishes for a speedy recovery to John Flansburgh who had a horrible car accident last week.
6] Downton Abbey: A New Era
$1,757,605 / $40,100,330
Todd Phillips is out here threatening to ruin Harley Quinn, musicals, and Lady Gaga for me all in one fell swoop with his Joker sequel. And during PRIDE MONTH, no less!
7] Everything Everywhere All at Once
$1,306,056 / $63,066,626
Officially A24’s highest-grossing film of all-time worldwide! We devoted Michelle Yeoh stans stay winning!
8] Firestarter
$833,340 / $9,265,600
Your guess is as good as mine as to how on earth this resurrection happened. Shrank to 150 screens yet posted a giant 720% increase on last weekend’s earnings, with a $5,555 PTA which was only beaten by Jurassic World and Top Gun on the entire chart. Is… is this a bit? Like with Morbius except that people are actually paying to see the boring bad film everyone makes meme-jokes about? Do I have to live in fear of all boring bad movies getting an ironic Morbius second-life now?
$750,559 / $189,877,243
Potentially premature, this, since Lightyear is the only new Wide release next weekend, but let’s see if we can’t send Sonic off in the most fitting way regardless. With his fake-death.
10] Ante Sundharaniki
$620,000 / NEW
In non-terrible Harley Quinn news, my fave disaster bisexuals are finally back soon! LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Dropped out: The Lost City, Crimes of the Future