Summer box office pulls in billions
When Jurassic World crossed $1 billion globally in its first 13 days of release, it did it faster than any movie before. And it wasn’t just the first film this year, or even this season, to reach that mark. Jurassic World is the third billion-dollar movie this summer following Furious 7 ($1.5 billion) and Avengers: Age of Ultron ($1.4 billion). Those two films already rank among the five highest grossing films ever, and Jurassic World is certain to join them. A billion dollars is starting to look easy.
The summer box office got off to a so-so start, but, suddenly, business is booming at the multiplex. After Jurassic World set an opening record two weeks ago, almost doubling expectations, Pixar’s Inside Out followed up with a forecast-busting debut of its own, with $90.4 million.
Jurassic World, both a sequel and a reboot, is directed by Colin Trevorrow but also came, importantly, with Steven Spielberg’s name attached as executive producer. The fourth Jurassic Park film—like the runaway success of Furious 7— has essentially proven, without a doubt, the new math of Hollywood: The money (especially in billion-form) is in franchises.
What’s striking about this new wave of franchise frenzy is that it’s not even taking Hollywood’s A-game. Jurassic World was virtually assured of making gobs of money, but few expected it to be the biggest summer hit of all time. “As disposable as used Kleenex,” is how movie blogger David Poland of Movie City News described it, echoing the sentiments of most critics.
The Fast and Furious franchise also looks odd ranked just below Titanic. Yet, propelled by Furious 7 and Jurassic World, Universal Pictures, which distributed both, has already had the biggest year ($3.8 billion) in its 103year history.
Pixar, which is owned by Disney, has its own plans for more sequels ( Finding Dory, Toy Story 4, The Incredibles 2), but the large opening of Inside Out— the largest opening weekend by a wholly original property, surpassing Avatar—proves that a good idea, well told, can still drive enormous audiences.
The summer to date is up about 11 percent over last year, according to Rentrak, though that’s still five percent off the pace of Hollywood’s record $4.75 billion summer in 2013. A bad Memorial Day weekend (when Disney’s Tomorrowland flopped) hurt overall business, and no smaller sized releases have really broken out.