Weekend Wrap-Up
Terminator, Magic Mike Flaccid Against Fireworks and Holdovers
By John Hamann
July 5, 2015
Jurassic World is now spending its fourth consecutive weekend at the top spot (assuming estimates hold). With $527 million in the domestic bank before the weekend began, a slip to number two was in the forecast, but the dinosaurs-eating-people movie had a relatively strong Saturday-Sunday to just edge out the Pixar film that is constantly playing the bridesmaid role. Jurassic World certainly didn’t implode versus The Terminator and in its fourth frame, Jurassic World still managed to earn a healthy $30.9 million, and fell a not bad 43% compared to last weekend’s haul of $54.5 million. People are definitely seeing Jurassic World more than once, as the big screen spectacle keeps drawing them back in. Made for $150 million, the Universal release only needed to find $450 million worldwide to see a profit, but with a domestic total of $558.2 million and a worldwide gross of $1.385 billion, Universal can fund a year’s worth of blockbusters from the profit made off of Jurassic World.
Given how the 4th landed, Inside Out could have been skewered just as much as the openers. Still, it is summer, so now every day acts like a weekend box office day. For Inside Out, the holiday gave Friday even more oomph, and it earned $12.5 million for Friday alone, off only 17% from the Friday previous. Even if Saturday and Sunday was down heavily due to July 4th, the weekend wasn’t going to be a disaster given the Friday hold.
The weekend gross for Pixar's masterpiece is estimated at $30.1 million, which means Inside Out was down 42% from its second weekend earnings of $52.3 million. For a good comparison, in July of 2009, Up was in its sixth frame and July 4th similarly landed on a Saturday. Up was off a hefty 50% that weekend, but it carries an asterisk, as Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs opened to $41.7 million over the same weekend.
Inside Out’s domestic total rises to $246.2 million, as the critically embraced flick crossed the $200 million mark on Monday, only its 12th day of release. That’s faster than all other Pixar titles save Toy Story 3, which hit the same mark in nine days. Things will get much more difficult from here though for Inside Out, as Universal’s Minions opens next weekend, and I believe awareness is quite high for our little yellow friends. Despite that, Inside Out will cross the $300 million mark and should challenge Finding Nemo’s original domestic earnings of $340 million.
Terminator: Genisys pulls up in a somewhat disappointing third. It failed to create any momentum heading into opening weekend, and when it gained a little on Friday night, it ran into July 4th on Saturday. The return of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the role of Terminator was met with little reaction when it opened on Tuesday and Wednesday, when it settled for an opening day gross of only $8.9 million. The sad writing was already on the wall at that point, and Paramount was already pointing to strong overseas results to lessen the blow. With a $155 million budget, a half billion worldwide was necessary, split between $200 million domestic and $300 million overseas if possible. Paramount had to be sweating after opening day, and it had nothing to do with the hot summer sun.
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