Dinosaurs beat out the latest Pixar confection at the box office this weekend.
“Jurassic World” handed the Pixar Studios its first-ever debut in less than first place, as the dinosaur-bites-man sequel grossed $102 million this weekend, and “Inside Out” brought in $91 million.
“Jurassic World” was on track to sell $981 million in tickets worldwide over its first eight days of exhibition, said movie analyst Paul Dergarabedian at Rentrak, an industry tracking and analysis firm.
All was not lost at Pixar, however, as it had been predicvted to sell only $60 million in tickets, and was on track to bring in $91 million while up against the Jurassic juggernaut.
“Inside Out” posted “a fantastic worldwide start this weekend” and has cumulative sales of $132 million worldwide, Dergarabedian said.
And the two movies together “set up a very nice box office momentum,” Dergarabedian said.
“Just the top two films alone generated nearly $200 million in box office (sales), and the overall weekend will flirt with the $250 million mark,” he exclaimed.
Rounding out the 10 most popular films in the United States and Canada, as estimated by the studios and collated by Rentrak, were “Spy” ($10.5 million), “San Andreas” ($8.2 million), “Dope” (debuting at $6 million), “Insidious Chapter 3” ($4.1 million), “Pitch Perfect 2” ($3.2 million), “Mad Max: Fury Road” ($2.8 million), “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” ($2.7 million) and “Tomorrowland” ($2 million).
