The Weekend Report: Jurassic Park and Inside Out Exceed Expectations

In which I run down the big winners (and losers) at the box office this weekend.

It's been another weekend for the books.  The Box Office promise of Age of Ultron has carried through to the rest of the summer as well.

Unsurprisingly, Jurassic World was again King at the box office this weekend.  And although it came down to the wire, they succeeded at beating The Avengers' record for the largest second weekend gross, bringing in just over $106 million after its record-setting opening weekend.

While Inside Out did fall behind Jurassic World in its box office debut, it vastly exceeded everybody's expectations.  Industry predictions put it just short of $70 million for the weekend - in line with Brave and Up, both of which were released around the same time of their respective years.  When all was said and done, however, it raked in North of $90 million, making it the best debut of a completely original property in history (not a sequel, prequel, remake, reboot, adaptation, etc...).

What's more, the reviews for the movies are universally positive.  It's safe to say, then, that after what can only be described as a supremely disappointing stretch for the Disney-owned animation studio, Pixar is finally back on top of its game.  It gives me a lot of hope for upcoming Pixar films like The Good Dinosaur and even the cringe-worthy Finding Dory.

Even Dope did better than expected (or at least better than I expected.  Despite a fairly limited release and a debut alongside two box office titans, it still managed to pull off a repsectable $6+ million dollars.  Paired with its enthusiastic reviews, this is definitely one that I'm going to make every effort to see in the next couple of days.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see anything new in the theaters this weekend, owing to a wedding that I only just got back from last night.  That is furthermore why I didn't get the chance to post this and other articles when they were initially scheduled to go up.

The plan is to take care of today's and yesterday's articles before I head off for work later tonight (and maybe when I get back from it later tonight).  Expect my reviews for Jurassic World and the non-new release that I watched this weekend to go up then, as well as some exciting news from the set of Black Panther, a belated Unreality Companion and a few other goodies as well.  Expect my review for Inside Out - and maybe Dope - within the next week.

Box Office Ranking:

1) Jurassic World -  $106.5m
2)  Inside Out - $90.4m
3) Spy - $11.2m
4)  San Andreas - $8.7m
5)  Dope - $6.1m
6)  Insidious: Chapter 3 - $4m
7)  Pitch Perfect 2 - $3.5m
8)  Mad Max: Fury Road - $3m
9)  Avengers: Age of Ultron - $2.8m
10)  Tomorrowland - $2m

So what movie did you see in theaters this last weekend?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Join the Filmquisition on Twitter (@Filmquisition) or by subscribing to this blog.