‘Jurassic Park Dominion’ Storms Ahead of ‘Lightyear’ in Box-Office Upset
The dinosaurs devoured $58.7 million in their second outing, while ‘Lightyear’ came in behind expectations with a $51 million debut.
This is the first time in the pandemic with 3 major Hollywood tentpoles doing solid-to-great business (Top Gun: Maverick is the third).
As a result, overall domestic revenue hit an estimated $166 million, which is down only 18 percent from 2019 (usually, that gap has been much bigger).
Lightyear was expected to top the chart with a $70 million to $85 million opening. Instead, the Toy Story spinoff buzzed to a disappointing $51 million from 4,255 theaters.
That’s a solid number for the COVID-19 era–as well as biggest opening of the pandemic for animated family film–Lightyear‘s start is nonetheless a disappointment, considering it carries the storied Pixar logo.
Chris Evans voices the iconic Space Ranger in the origin tale, which marks Pixar’s return to the big screen after several of its animated family films headed straight for Disney+ due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lightyear serves as a test for the strength of the family market as the box office continues to recover.
Lukewarm Reviews
The animated film has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 78 percent, which is on the lower end for Pixar offering, particularly for the Toy Story franchise. Audiences, however, gave it an A- CinemaScore.
Universal and Amblin’s Jurassic World Dominion stayed No. 1 with $58.7 million from 4,679 locations for a 10-day domestic tally of $247.8 million and more than $622.2 million globally (it’s only the seventh Hollywood title to cross $600 million in the pandemic era). One sobering note: Dominion tumbled 60 percent domestically, a bigger fall than the last two dino films.
Monday is a federal holiday honoring Juneteenth, so it could look more like a Saturday and Sunday in terms of traffic at the box office. Universal insiders believe Jurassic World 3‘s domestic total could climb as high as $68 million for the four days.
Lightyear should also see a boost on Monday.
Paramount Top Gun: Maverick remained formidable force in its fourth weekend. The sensation dropped mere 15 percent to $44 million for a domestic total of $466.2 million as it flies for the $500 million mark.
At the specialty box office, British comedy Brian and Charles opened to $830,000 from 279 theaters for a tepid per location average of $711 despite winning the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Focus Features acquired the film out of Sundance for a reasonable price.
