Chris Pratt may have helped to give Avengers: Infinity War a boost as Star-Lord when he alongside the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy popped up in the movie. However, it appears he’s destroying the Summer of 2018 with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom as well. The massive opening weekend puts the movie in rare company.
To some, this was the “Summer of Josh Brolin”. To be fair, it made sense to assume this. Brolin was set to appear as Thanos in Infinity War and play as Cable in Deadpool 2. That is not even counting his appearance in Sicario. Clearly, Brolin picked his movies well, but likely did not really plan out how they’d release.
While Deadpool 2 did well, it seems Pratt’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom movie alongside Bryce Dallas Howard may be the second biggest hit of the summer and the year. Sure, it made sense to predict that Infinity War would dominate and it surely has. It has grossed over $2 billion worldwide thus far and it’ll likely top this soon. However, Black Panther should not be discounted for its billion as well.
However, if Fallen Kingdom can manage to keep on the pace it is going, it’ll gross the second most this year for any film. It looks like they are on their way. The movie officially debuted in the United States on June 22nd, and it seemed everyone wanted to see it. So much so, the movie grossed over $600 million this past weekend. As it stands, the movie has earned just under $730 million worldwide as of this writing.
To equate the difference between Jurassic and other films, the next closest to Avengers outside a Disney project is Deadpool 2 which grossed a total of $707.9 million since its release in early May.
It has had over a month longer than Jurassic and yet Fallen Kingdom managed to pass it with its opening weekend. To be fair, the first film, Jurassic World, was pretty good and the second movie was highly anticipated as a result. Yet no one saw this sort of run for it.
Avengers: Infinity War had a huge opening weekend as well, but it would eventually run into competition. It seems that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, will have a while before it runs into anything stopping its success. This movie could very well near Infinity War. Will it top it? Likely not. However, it does appear like it could get pretty close.
The studio is clearly rejoicing, as the movie only used a budget of nearly $190 million. Movie success is dictated on a movie making back the budget multiplied by two. This means in order for the movie to be a success, Universal Pictures needed to net at least $400million minimum. They have nearly doubled this number in one week of the movie’s opening.
While some have not come out to say it yet, it does seem quite obvious by now. Chris Pratt looks to be a huge draw in Hollywood, and this could end up giving him some major opportunities going forward. Pratt will be taking part in a movie called The Kid later this year. In 2019, we’ll see him show up in the LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part as well as the untitled Avengers 4 film before jumping back to Guardians of the Galaxy.
Overall, this summer has been good to movies. Over $6billion has been made since May and we’re just about half-way in, meaning we could see one of the largest movie grossing summers in modern history. Imagine what the rest of the year could be with more major films yet to make their way to the big screen.