This Is Gonna Be An Emotional Weekend For Jurassic World

If you had told me a week ago Jurassic World would have the biggest opening weekend of all-time, I would have called you a madman. Now? It's a fact Jack; the newest film in that dino filled franchise made $208 million in one weekend, enough to dethrone The Avengers as the largest opening weekend for a movie in history. It's all but a certainty that Jurassic World will lead again, the only question is, how much will it make?

Previous mid-June summer blockbusters Man of Steel and Green Lantern subsequently lost 65 and 66%, respectively, in their second frames. The unusually large dip can be accounted for mixed word-of-mouth on both titles, which doesn't seem to be a problem at all for Jurassic World, which seems to have incredibly good buzz. It's also gonna get a boost from Fathers Day this weekend, which should help soften its second weekend hold considerably. A 59% dip sounds about right, which would lead to an $85 million frame, the second biggest second weekend in history (behind The Avengers, which made $103 million in its follow up frame).

Conventionally, when a movie like Jurassic World is doing this well, any film that tries to open in its wake tend to get capsized, but the newest PIXAR movie, Inside Out, looks to buck that trend. The main thing helping the motion picture is the lack of enticing family movies in the marketplace, with nothing aimed at families having an opening weekend over $35 million in almost three months. It doesn't hurt that Disney has given this one a huge marketing push that's been great at selling the unique concept, as well as notable gags and the great buzz its received from critics.

So how high can it go? Well, believe it or not, I think Inside Out will manage to have the largest opening weekend for an original PIXAR film, beating out The Incredibles, which has held the record for ten-and-a-half years. Up was just two million dollars shy of breaking that record, and taking into account six years of inflation and the dearth of family movies out right now, Inside Out should be able to break that record.

The other new release this weekend is a film that made quite a splash at Sundance, Dope. Being a smaller scale release in comparison to Inside Out and Jurassic World, this could serve as solid counterprogramming for those looking for unconventional summer fare at the cinema. Smartly, Open Road Films is only opening the motion picture in only 1800 theaters, allowing it the opportunity to expand to more locations in forthcoming weeks if word-of-mouth is good. Look for this one to have a nice per theater average, maybe a little over $4000 per location, for this weekend, and if audiences really respond to it, this could play quite well all the way through the Fourth of July holiday.

Below are my opening weekend and final gross predictions for this weekends new releases, as well as my projections for this weekends Top 5.

Inside Out
Opening Weekend: $73 million
Total Gross: $260 million

Dope
Opening Weekend: $7.5 million
Total Gross: $30 million

1) Jurassic World: $85 million
2) Inside Out: $73 million
3) Spy: $10.2 million
4) Dope: $7.5 million
5) San Andreas: $6.5 million