Jurassic World sets new box office record with monstrous opening weekend
The fearsome dinosaurs have done it again, gobbling up the competition to score the biggest worldwide box office opening weekend ever with the latest franchise.
Action-packed , featuring a new and particularly lethal hybrid dino, raked in a whopping US$511 million globally in its debut at cinemas, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
That was the largest weekend take ever, eclipsing (US$483 million in 2011), according to .
The unprecedented haul for - which has had largely positive, if not sparkling reviews - was boosted by the US$100 million earned in China alone and the blockbuster topped the box office in 66 countries. In North America, made US$204.6 million, just short of the record for an opening weekend in the region.
That record is held by Marvel's at US$207.4 million in 2012. "This is absolutely a four-quadrant movie and is working on so many levels.
The release date was awesome and everybody stayed off of our date," quoted Universal domestic distribution chief Nick Carpou as saying.
In addition to Chris Pratt as chief dinosaur-keeper and Bryce Dallas Howard as the park's over-zealous marketing guru, the cast of the film includes a multi-ethnic array of actors.
Co-produced by Steven Spielberg - who directed the first two of the four films - takes us back to the island theme park where scientists first revived T-Rex and Co for paying customers more than two decades ago.
Paul Dergarabedian, a media analyst at Rentrak, said benefited from something of a perfect box-office storm.
"Nostalgia, legacy, pedigree: Three things that can make a newly updated franchise a monster," he said.
"There are many reasons d is eating box office records like a hungry Indominus Rex: the original was the second coming of and was for many the film that defined in the psyche their personal definition of the summer movie experience.
Universal Pictures had also been smart with its marketing of the film, he added, noting that broadcaster NBC in the US had been showing the original in the run-up to the latest release.
