EARLY FRIDAY BOX OFFICE: “Jurassic World” Devours June Records

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JURASSIC WORLD (Legendary/Universal) is stomping past even the the highest expectations for its opening.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, its opening day was a stupendous $78.6M (including $18.5M from Thursday night), giving it the biggest June box office day ever by far, easily passing the $68.5M for Twilight: Eclipse, and in line for the 4th highest day of all time, behind the opening days for the final Harry Potter and the 2 Avengers.  It will swamp the June weekend record, currently held by Man of Steel with $116.6M, and could go as high as $180M+, which would put it behind only the Avengers duo as the 3rd biggest opening weekend ever.  And all of that is only in the US–Jurassic is expected to earn well over $200M this weekend in 68 foreign territories, including China.  Membership in the worldwide $1B club seems all but assured, and Chris Pratt will be in the enviable position of holding two mega-franchises in his hands.  In addition, the major openings over the next 2 weeks are the comedies Inside Out and Ted 2, so Jurassic won’t face any direct competition until Terminator: Genisys arrives on July 1.

Nothing else made even 10% as much as Jurassic on Friday.  SPY (20th) held its own, dropping 52% from its opening day to $5M–not a terrible fall, but a much steeper slide than the 2d Fridays of The Heat and Identity Thief, which respectively went down by 37% and 41%.  Spy will probably drop around 45% for the weekend, again a bigger decline than Melissa McCarthy’s other hits, and seems to be headed for $90M in the US.  However, it’s on track to perform considerably better outside the US than those other comedies, which should help equalize the worldwide result.

SAN ANDREAS (Rat Pac Dune/Village Roadshow/New Line/Warners), naturally enough, took a major hit from the arrival of Jurassic, plunging 61% from last Friday to $3M and on its way to a $10M weekend.  It probably won’t reach $150M in the US, but is in better position than other summer epics that need foreign strength to hit profit, because of its relatively reasonable $110M production cost.

INSIDIOUS CHAPTER 3 (Focus/Universal) took a horror movie drop, down 74% from its opening day to $2.8M and a likely $8M weekend.  It won’t get much past $50M in the US, but with its $10M production budget, it should hit profit despite the more substantial costs of its marketing.

ENTOURAGE (Rat Pac Dune/Warners) fell 64% from last Friday to $1.3M, and that’s even worse than it looks, because last Friday was its 3rd day of release rather than its opening day.  With a $4M weekend and $35M US total ahead, the question is how much money its marketing campaign will put it in the red.

PITCH PERFECT 2 (Gold Circle/Universal) held best of the older titles, down 42% Friday-to-Friday to $1.5M, and on the road to a $4.5M weekend and a $180M US total, certainly not the gaudy numbers of the CG extravaganzas, but with one of the best returns on investment of the season.

LOVE & MERCY (Lionsgate/Roadside) expanded by 20% to 573 theatres but still dropped Friday-to-Friday by nearly 30%.  Its likely $1.5M weekend will give it a blah $2500 per-theatre average.

ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL (Fox Searchlight) had a somewhat soft start at 15 theatres, with a per-theatre average for the weekend that will probably be under $15K.  It was intended as counterprogramming against Jurassic, but its target audience of teens may have been too close to the dinosaur demo.