Jurassic World Opens Gates to $18.5 Million on Thursday Night

June 12, 2015

To describe 2015 as a good year for Universal is something of an understatement. After Furious 7 became their most successful film of all time, and recently setting a record for the fastest to $2 billion internationally in a calendar year, the studio now has another blockbusting opening on their hands. Jurassic World opened last night at 7pm in North American theaters, and earned $18.5 million by the end of the day, the 14th-best late-night debut of all time, and on a par with films like The Dark Knight, which made exactly the same on its opening night back in 2008, and opening weekend record holder The Avengers, which posted $18.7 million in 2012.

Does Jurassic World have a shot at an all-time record itself? Current tracking suggests not, but it’s certainly playing in enough theaters (4,273) to top $150 million. Word of mouth will be critical though. A comparison with similar movies suggests quite a range of possible outcomes:

A weekend around $150 million looks like a good bet right now, although The Hobbit shows that there is still a potential to miss that kind of number if the late night audience consists of hardcore fans who aren’t representative of general public interest in the film. Even with The Hobbit’s ratio of 6.5 between late night shows and the weekend, we still get a $120 million weekend for Jurassic World. That seems to be at the absolute low end of what we should expect at this point. Becoming Universal’s first $150 million debut seems more likely.

Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com

Filed under: Midnight Previews, Jurassic World, Furious 7