Despite roaring out of the gate last Friday, dinosaur sequel Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has suffered a massive box office drop in weekend two. Considering that the first Jurassic World film is one of the highest-grossing films in history - #5 on the chart with nearly $1.7 billion, right behind Avengers: Infinity War - it was absolutely fair for observers to expect the same type of box office dominance from its sequel. Unfortunately, that might not end up being the case.
Now, that’s not to say that Fallen Kingdom is doing poorly overall, because it most certainly isn’t. The film crushed the box office during its domestic opening weekend, earning nearly $150 million. A sky-high international sales total has so far added on over $600 million to that haul, leading to a total worldwide gross of $826.5 million. That’s definitely an impressive stat, but it’s also telling, as Fallen Kingdom’s domestic opening was down nearly 30% from its predecessor. Foreign ticket sales might help shore up Fallen Kingdom in the end, but the chances of it equaling or surpassing Jurassic World’s $652 million domestic take are looking slim.
Now, Exhibitor Relations has tweeted out a surprising fact: Fallen Kingdom only earned $17.4 million on Friday. That’s a staggering 71% drop from last week’s Friday total of $58.5 million. While this kind of huge drop does sometimes happen - for example, Solo: A Star Wars Story sustained an enormous 77% Friday-to-Friday drop in May - it’s definitely not encouraging.
While Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is still projected to easily take #1 again domestically this weekend - with a total of around $60 million - that’s also not really an encouraging stat overall. Assuming the projections hold out, that’ll be a 59% weekend-to-weekend drop, much higher than the first Jurassic World’s 49% drop from weekend one to weekend two. Things start to look even worse when one considers that Jurassic World’s domestic opening weekend take was $208 million, much higher than Fallen Kingdom’s domestic opening. All in all, while high overseas grosses will likely once again lift Universal’s sequel well over the $1 billion mark, Fallen Kingdom will probably come up short of topping Jurassic World’s worldwide take as well.
A couple of factors that likely contributed to Fallen Kingdom’s second weekend plunge are that it’s pre-July 4 weekend in the states, and that the sequel’s critical notices haven’t exactly been impressive. While the actual July 4 holiday isn’t until Wednesday, lots of Americans are already on vacation for the event, and this would be far from the first time that said exodus led to an underwhelming weekend for the box office. Still, that’s hardly a rule, as many films have done well around the holiday. On the critical side, Fallen Kingdom earned a 51% on Rotten Tomatoes, much lower than Jurassic World’s 71% score. Thus, it’s definitely possible that many who hesitated to see the film opening weekend ended up discouraged by reviews. One wonders what this downward trend for the franchise means for 2021’s Jurassic World 3.
More: The Biggest Unanswered Questions From Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Source: Exhibitor Relations
- Jurassic World Dominion Release Date: 2022-06-10