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APEX Hollywood Shortlist: Jurassic World Rules the World with Record-Breaking $500M Global Haul

June 16, 2015  | Written by Tomas Romero

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Mega-dinosaur Indominus Rex wasn’t the only creature that devoured everything in its wake this weekend as Universal’s Jurassic World chomped its way into the box office record books with a jaw-dropping $208.8M stateside debut, the best opening weekend in Hollywood history. And when you factor in the $315.3M the genetically-modified dinos took in on the international front, Jurassic World officially ruled the world over the weekend with a global haul of $524.5M, the largest international opening ever.

Starring blockbuster golden boy Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy, The LEGO Movie), Bryce Dallas Howard (The Village), Jake Johnson (TV’s New Girl), Irfan Kahn (Life of Pi) and B.D. Wong (reprising his role as Dr. Henry Wu from the original film) the fourth film in the Jurassic Park franchise was directed by indie writer-director Colin Trevorrow. Known primarily for his 2012 micro-budgeted comedy, Safety Not Guaranteed, which won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at that year’s Sundance Film Festival, Trevorrow at first seemed like an unlikely pick to handle the reigns of such a big-budget franchise, but his unique take on the material seems to have paid off handsomely for all involved.

With Jurassic fever at a premium and Jurassic World-branded LEGO sets, candy, chips, soda pop and even limited-edition dinosaur-themed Barbasol shaving cream, literally flying off store shelves nationwide, this is one pop culture “happening” that shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Also opening over the weekend were two very different independent films about burgeoning filmmakers, both of which took home top honors at this past January’s Sundance Film Festival.

Taking in $196.4K on just fifteen screens, the comedy-drama Me and Earl and the Dying Girl took home the US Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic and the Audience Award for US Drama at Sundance and is already generating serious Oscar talk for its director, TV veteran Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (Glee).

Adapted from his 2012 debut novel of the same name by screenwriter Jesse Andrews, Earl stars Thomas Mann (Project X), Olivia Cooke (TV’s Bates Motel), newcomer Ronald Cyler II and SNL’s Molly Shannon and revolves around the efforts of two high school friends/amateur filmmakers to make a low-budget film for their dying classmate. And though the premise sounds bleak, the film’s fun, offbeat tone is already drawing comparisons to similar sleeper hits like Napoleon Dynamite and Juno. In other words, prepare to laugh and cry like a baby, sometimes at the exact time.

Opening on an even smaller scale in just two theaters with $43.9K, and a whopping per-screen average of $21.9K, was director Chrystal Moselle’s gritty, one-of-a-kind documentary The Wolfpack.

Winner of Sundance’s US Grand Jury Prize: Documentary, The Wolfpack explores the bizarre inner world of six brothers (and a sister) who were homeschooled by their parents in a tiny NYC apartment. Rarely, if ever, allowed to leave the apartment, the children learned about the outside world by studying and recreating scenes from films like Goodfellas, Reservoir Dogs and Batman. Already shaping up to be the must-see indie documentary of the summer, The Wolfpack too seems tailor-made for award-season kudos down the road.

Complete Box Office Results – June 12 – 14, 2015