Over a decade after the last film of the fan-favorite franchise came out, Hollywood officially welcomes back the dinosaurs into the limelight. With the groundbreaking success of “Jurassic World,” the fourth installment in the Jurassic Park series that premiered on June 12, it is now the fastest film to earn $1 billion on a single weekend, the third highest-grossing film release of 2015 to date and, the eighth highest-grossing film of all time.
The latest offering from Universal Pictures managed to outweigh, in terms of box-office sales during its first two weeks, the fan-favorite film this year “Avengers: Age of Ultron” as well as the James Wan action film “Fast & Furious 7.”
According to Box Office Mojo, the Colin Trevorrow-directed film earned an estimated $500 million on its premiere weekend ultimately stealing the top spot of this year’s highest-grossing film from Joss Whedon’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” which made an estimated $452 million in domestic gross and managed to surpass the late Paul Walker’s film that grossed $351 million. Rounding up the five top grosser for 2015 are Disney’s live-action film “Cinderella” and Pixar’s “Inside Out” which made $200 million and $185 million, respectively.
Premium film formats such as 3D and IMAX also has the dinosaur film to thank for as the innovation achieved new heights with the film’s release. 3D releases have seemingly gone down, delivering only 13% of gross in 2014 but thanks to the Chris Pratt topbilled blockbuster, some 48% of “Jurassic World’s” opening weekend record came from 3D ticket sales, which means people are willing to add a few extra bucks to experience depth perception.
Analyst Eric Wold sees this resurgence of 3D and IMAX arrangements as a fundamental consumer demand for the film industry, adding that moviegoers are willing to watch and sometimes re-watch movies in 3D, but they are also well-versed that even the best 3D format cannot make a crappy movie any less crappy.
Other summer film releases such as “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Dwayne Johnson’s “San Andreas,” and animated film “Inside Out” also allowed 3D and IMAX sales to bounce back this year. Safe to say, the film industry is beaming with a lot of success and momentum with producers and filmmakers eyeing films slated to be released this year to turn to 3D and IMAX formats to give fans that giant-screen experience they definitely deserve.
Dino Disneyland of the future
Set 22 years after the last “Jurassic Park” movie, “Jurassic World” allows humans and dinosaurs to co-exist as the theme park is seen to be the Dino Disneyland of the future. The events of the film still take place in the island of Nublar where the three previous films occurred as well. The place is seen as a well-developed and fully functioning dinosaur theme park where people flock to see real dinosaurs born through a series of test tube technology.
Conflict arises in the park when raptor researcher Owen Grady played by Chris Pratt was given right of entry to the park’s first genetically modified hybrid dino, Indominus Rex, but knowing the film’s nature, trouble ensues and the creature breaks loose unleashing mayhem to the park and its entire populace.
The film also stars Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing, the parks operations executive, Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson as Claire’s niece and nephew, B.D Wong and more from the ensemble cast, with Tony Award winner Wong, who appeared in former Jurassic films, reprising his role as Dr. Henry Wu.
References to the film’s parent trilogy were evident as the film paid homage to the Steven Spielberg original creation in most scenes. The first motion picture of the science fiction adventure franchise was released in 1993. Four years after, follow up “Jurassic Park: The Lost World” was released in 1997. In 2001, “Jurassic Park III” came to cinemas.