‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ Does Monster Business at Box Office

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom feasted on the competition at the weekend box office with a massive $150 million domestic opening, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.

The dinosaur sequel surpassed analyst expectations, to ring up the second best opening ever for Universal Pictures after the film’s predecessor, Jurassic World, debuted with $208 million in 2015.

The film, about a campaign to rescue the world’s last few dinosaurs from extinction after a dormant volcano roars to life, stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, James Cromwell, Jeff Goldblum and BD Wong of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fame.

The sci-fi thriller brought in an additional $561 million overseas, pushing its global total to $711.5 million.

Critics were split on Fallen Kingdom, giving it a 50% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite reviews calling the film “mindless” and “stale,” the numbers showed moviegoers didn’t care about what the critics had to say.

The action adventure played in 4,475 theaters across North America, averaging $33,520 per location. That was more than enough to take the top spot at the weekend box office.

Last week’s leader, the animated Disney-Pixar adventure Incredibles 2, slipped to second place with $81 million. Ocean’s 8 took third with $11.6 million. Tag came in fourth with $8 million and Deadpool 2 was fifth with $5 million.

Among the other holdovers, Superfly did muted business. The blaxploitation remake fell 51 percent from last week, ringing up another $3 million this weekend to push its two-week total $15. 2 million.

Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time, which played together with fellow Disney release Incredibles 2 at some drive-in theaters, earned another $90,000.

That pushed the fantasy film’s domestic total to $100,389,926, making DuVernay the first Black female director to ever helm a film that crossed the $100 million domestic box-office mark. Jeff Stockwell wrote the script.

A Wrinkle in Time is based on a young adult novel of the same name from Madeleine L’Engle. The film follows a girl named Meg’s brave journey into space to find her scientist father after he disappears.

The film features an all-star cast including Storm Reid, Chris Pine, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, André Holland, Rowan Blanchard, Bellamy Young, and David Oyelowo. The epic adventure was released in March and is now available on DVD.