Box Office Discussion: Top of the "World"

 Jurassic World: Dominion roars to the top of the box office, while Top Gun aims for the year's #1 spot.

Thanks to the pandemic, there was a two-year stretch between the opening of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker the week before Christmas 2019 and Spider-Man: No Way Home the week before Christmas 2021 when no movie had a $100 million opening (indeed, for over a year, no movie even came close to a $100 million final gross).  After Spider-Man broke the dam, it took nearly 5 months for the next $100 million opener with Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.  Since then, however, a 9-digit start has become almost routine, as Jurassic World: Dominion becomes the third movie in six weeks to pull off the feat.

It's big opening isn't a surprise, as the first two Jurassic World titles also pulled the trick (with the first World back in 2015 topping $200 million and briefly holding the title of biggest opening ever).  There was some concern that the bad reviews and maybe just fatigue with the franchise might doom Dominion to an underwhelming opening.  There was no need to fear, as Dominion smashed into theaters with $145.1 million, nearly even with what Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opened to four years ago, and good for the second-biggest opening of the year, behind the good Doctor's opening.

Dominion was able to open big despite continued competition from Top Gun: Maverick, which flew high to take another $51.9 million in its third weekend.  That's the 10th best third weekend of all time, and only a little off of what No Way Home's third weekend brought in--and that film started far higher than Maverick and was over a holiday weekend.  The film finished the weekend with $395.4 million, and by now has almost certainly topped $400 million.  $500 million is a given, and $600 million is beginning to come into play.  

Way, way, way back in third is the aforementioned Doctor Strange, which managed to attract $5.2 million to bring its year-topping (for the next day or two) gross to $398.1 million.  Like Top Gun, this one should be above $400 million by the weekend, but unlike Top Gun, it won't go much higher than that.

Long-running animated hit The Bad Guys keeps slowly crawling toward $100 million, brining in $2.5 million for a total of $91.8 million.  It was able to pull past fellow animated title The Bob's Burgers Movie, which has proven to be a bit of a disappointment, cooking up $2.5 million for a total of $27.2 million.

Also disappointing is fellow TV spin-off Downton Abbey: A New Era, which brought in $1.8 million for a total of $40.1 million, and is likely heading to a final total less than half of what the first film made in 2019.  Another long-running hit, Everything Everywhere All At Once, had another strong hold, but is definitely looking like its heading toward the exit, with a weekend gross of $1.3 million, bringing its total to $63.1 million.

With Jurassic World and Top Gun sucking up most of the business (the two films together accounted for 92% of ticket sales over the weekend), no other film was able to make it above $1 million.  That didn't mean there wasn't an oddity in 8th, as Firestarter came in with $0.8 million, which is roughly 8 times what it had made last weekend, on more screens.  At first, I assumed it was a typo, but those numbers were reported consistently across multiple box-office tracking sites.  The most logical explanation is that Universal paired the film with Jurassic World as the second half of a double feature, and applied some of the dinos' bonanza to the King adaption.  Never mind that precious few people showed up to the double feature specifically for Firestarter, it still gets the credit.  This brings its total to $9.3 million.

Rounding out the Top 10, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 wraps up a successful theatrical run with $189.9 million, while the Bollywood romcom Ante Sundharaniki opened in tenth with $0.6 million.

One of the more concerning trends is the lack of new product being released into theaters.  While in the past, it was routine for three or four or even more new films to go wide on a given Friday, these days, having two wide releases is a bit of a miracle.  So two weeks after the widest release was an ill-fated reissue of Mobius in an attempt to cash in on memes, and a week when Jurassic World had the weekend to itself, there's yet again only one new title.  Lightyear marks Pixar's return to theaters, after their last three titles, Soul, Luca, and Turning Red, got shipped off directly to Disney+.  This follows the adventures of the "real" Buzz Lightyear (not the toy Buzz Lightyear) as he battles evil aliens (never mind that Disney had an entire early-aughts TV show following the adventures of the "real" Buzz Lightyear).  Critical reaction has been largely mixed, with even the most positive reviews conceding that it's hardly top-notch Pixar.  Still, the lack of other new titles, the lack of family films (other than the increasingly elderly Bad Guys), and the fact that Jurassic World is likely to decline at least 50% should give Lightyear the win this weekend.  Will it be able to top $100 million heading to the top of the chart and beyond?  We'll find out next weekend.