There is no questioning Pixar's legacy as a hit machine. The animation studio's movies are not only typically lauded by critics and ride into theaters on giant waves of hype, but they are also generally box office smash hits. Before this weekend, only two features – Pete Docter's Inside Out and Peter Sohn's The Good Dinosaur – had failed to claim the Number One spot in their respective debuts... but now that short list has grown to three titles. Angus MacLane's Lightyear is the latest to join the group, as it was unable to dethrone Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic: World: Dominion as the most popular film in theaters over the last three days.
Check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis!
| TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Jurassic World: Dominion | $58,660,000 | $249,796,690 | 1 | 4,697 |
| 2. Lightyear* | $51,000,000 | $51,000,000 | Row 1 - Cell 3 | 4,255 |
| 3. Top Gun: Maverick | $44,000,000 | $466,167,545 | 2 | 4,035 |
| 4. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness | $4,200,000 | $405,083,660 | 3 | 2,465 |
| 5. The Bob’s Burgers Movie | $1,100,000 | $29,762,030 | 5 | 1,350 |
| 6. The Bad Guys | $980,000 | $94,239,005 | 4 | 1,477 |
| 7. Everything Everywhere All At Once | $959,631 | $64,920,186 | 7 | 679 |
| 8. Downton Abbey: A New Era | $830,000 | $42,196,350 | 6 | 1,179 |
| 9. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 | $228,392 | $190,478,000 | 9 | 439 |
| 10. Brian And Charles | $198,000 | $198,000 | Row 9 - Cell 3 | 279 |
Jurassic World: Dominion Is Number One Again As It Has Another Big Weekend At The Box Office
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Jurassic World: Dominion dominated in its opening – earning $145.1 million – and while its weekend-to-weekend earnings slipped 60 percent after its awesome debut, it has remained a chart-topper. In the past three days it has added an additional $58.7 million to its domestic haul, and to date it has made $249.8 million from ticket sales in the United States and Canada (via The Numbers).
A 60 percent drop isn't generally seen as a good thing, but it's not altogether surprising given both its opening weekend success and the competition it's faced since Friday. The numbers still look fantastic in context. Case in point: Lightyear had the sixth biggest opening weekend of the year thus far, and the dinosaur feature still handily beat it.
This success, naturally, has led Jurassic World: Dominion to rocket up the 2022 charts, and it has already entered the Top 5 for the year. In just two weeks it has already made more than what Jeff Fowler's Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has made in its entire theatrical run domestically ($190.5 million) and it has easily taken over fourth place.
To rise up the ranks on that chart, it will need to make another $120 million to surpass the total made by Matt Reeves' The Batman ($369.3 million) and after that it will work to take down Sam Raimi's Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (which has made $405.1 million to date) and Joseph Kosinski's Top Gun: Maverick (which has seen earnings soar to $466.2 million). Of course, the Marvel and Tom Cruise movies are still playing on the big screen, so it's very much a constantly evolving race.
The buzz surrounding Jurassic World: Dominion hasn't been as strong as its predecessors in the franchise, as it earned worse reviews than any other sequel in the Jurassic World and Jurassic Park trilogies, but it is not only raking in money domestically, but also abroad. In addition to making nearly $250 million in the United States and Canada, it has made $372.4 million abroad, bringing its international total to an impressive $622.2 million.
Mirroring what it is doing at home, Jurassic World: Dominion is now in fourth place on the worldwide chart for 2022, sitting behind Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($942.1 million), Top Gun: Maverick ($818.6 million) and The Batman ($769.5 million).
Keeping things consistent, this means that the new sequel is also now the fourth most successful film in the Jurassic franchise – though it still needs to make a lot of money to enter the Top 3, and at this point it doesn't seem likely to happen. To date, Jon Watts' Spider-Man: No Way Home is still the only blockbuster to make a billion dollars at the box office since the start of the pandemic, and Jurassic World: Dominion will need to hit 10 figures if it wants to get anywhere near the box office totals made by Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World ($1.67 billion), J.A. Bayona's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($1.31 billion) and Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park ($1.05 billion).
Lightyear Settles For Second Place With A Modest Opening Weekend
As noted, Lightyear didn't exactly flop in its opening weekend, as the new Pixar movie still managed to make more money in the past three days than the vast majority of new releases that have hit theaters in 2022, but it's also hard to imagine that the filmmakers and executives at the studio are overwhelmingly happy with how the feature has performed thus far. The film has earned positive/mixed reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes aggregating a 77 percent score for the Toy Story spinoff, and it appears that its not inspiring as much excitement as most features from Pixar.
In addition to the $51 million Lightyear has made domestically, it has also made $34.6 million from outside of the United States and Canada, bringing its worldwide gross to date to $85.6 million.
There has been a great deal of speculation already trying to figure out why Lightyear hasn't been performing up to expectations, and some have pointed to confusion about the core concept and the film's relationship to the Toy Story movies. One interesting factor that is in the mix is the fact that this is the first Pixar feature to actually play in theaters since the release of Dan Scanlon's Onward in March 2020.
The animation studio has continued to release films since the start of the pandemic – including Pete Docter's Soul, Enrico Casarosa's Luca, and Domee Shi's Turning Red – but Lightyear is the first one that has actually gotten a theatrical release (all of the others were put out as Disney+ exclusives). It's entirely possible that audiences have gotten used to seeing Pixar features at home, and don't feel quite as motivated to check out the work on the big screen. Families may just be waiting for Lightyear to be available to stream, which will be happening in just a few weeks from now.
It will be fascinating in the week ahead to see how Jurassic World: Dominion, Lightyear, and Top Gun: Maverick continue to duke it out at the box office, especially with the forthcoming arrival of Baz Luhrman's Elvis and Scott Derrickson's The Black Phone. It should all make for some fascinating competition, so be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see how it all shakes out.
You can learn about all of the movies set to hit theaters in what remains of the year via our 2022 Movie Release Calendar.
