It all began on Friday night. As Forbes reports, the $64.1 million the film pulled in is the largest “pure” Friday opening ever in the U.S. — that means taking Wednesday and Thursday previews out of the equation. It beats The Avengers ($62.7 million), The Avengers 2 ($56.86 million), Iron Man 3 ($53.25 million) and Fast & Furious 7 ($51.6 million) in that category.
That obviously wasn’t enough for the rapacious dinosaurs at Universal Pictures. Over the weekend as a whole, the £511.8 million the movie has raked in across the world is officially the biggest opening for any film ever. In the U.S., it’s the second-best opening of all time with $204.8m, only beaten by the $207.4m amassed by the first Avengers film.
The movie is currently topping the charts in North America and all of the other 66 territories where it launched this weekend. It’s also broken Imax box office records, pulling in a mammoth $23.5 million across the world on huge high-definition screens even before you take standard theater viewings into consideration.
The film cost an estimated $150 million to make, putting its backers in line for a huge profit, and no doubt guaranteeing many more sequels down the line once the producers have finished counting the cash. So what’s the secret of their success? “Dinosaurs are fascinating to everyone,” said Nick Carpou, president of domestic distribution at Universal. “It’s cross-cultural.”
