‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ Aims to Outrun Franchise’s Diminishing Box Office Returns With $120 Million+ 5-Day Opening

A huge month for the box office kicks off on Wednesday with the release of Universal’s “Jurassic World Rebirth,” the seventh film in the long running “Jurassic” franchise that Steven Spielberg started 32 years ago and then got rebooted 10 years ago with “Jurassic World,” which still stands as Universal’s highest grossing film ever with $1.6 billion worldwide.

The question is how much fuel does “Jurassic World” still have with audiences? While all three films so far have been successful, the law of diminishing returns has been in effect. The 2018 installment “Fallen Kingdom” grossed $1.31 billion, while the 2022 film “Dominion” needed to leg out as far as it could to just get past $1 billion worldwide after earning a $145 million 3-day domestic opening.

“Rebirth,” which sees Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali take over as leads from Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, is expected to earn a strong 5-day opening over Fourth of July weekend but still lower than “Dominion.”

Current tracking has “Rebirth” earning a $120-125 million 5-day start, with Universal projecting $100 million for the extended period.

“Rebirth” will have the majority of premium formats this weekend, including Dolby and ScreenX. But it won’t have the top dog of the PLF pack, Imax, which will still be screening “F1” this weekend as it tries to leg out off of its strong word-of-mouth.

It also won’t have a boost from critics, who have given it a tepid 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. But that won’t mean much for “Jurassic World” given that “Fallen Kingdom” and “Dominion” also received mixed-to-poor reviews and were big summer hits, sealing the franchise’s status as critic-proof.

There’s a good chance this will happen again. If there’s anything summer moviegoers have shown, it’s that dinosaurs chasing and eating people is a reliable draw. Past “Jurassic World” films haven’t had the massive presales of peak superhero films, but they’ve enjoyed plenty of walk-up traffic from casual audiences who see the franchise as a fun way to spend a couple hours in an air-conditioned theater.

Given that “Superman” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” will be major tentpole competition in the weeks ahead, it’s likely that the numbers for “Jurassic World” will keep declining and “Rebirth” will be the first in the rebooted series to fall short of $1 billion. But insiders at Universal have told TheWrap that if the film can get past $800 million worldwide, that will be a win for the studio, at least in terms of this installment.

What we won’t know for several weeks, and perhaps much longer, is whether “Rebirth” will be the start of a new trilogy of “Jurassic World” films, the final extra bit of box office juice squeezed out of the franchise, or a film that will be looked back on as the last bonafide hit in the series before subsequent installments finally fail to make back the return on the huge investment required to bring those dinosaurs to life.

The T-Rex and the Mosasaurus and the countless other dinos that have enthralled “Jurassic” fans will always be the big stars, but Chris Pratt certainly added value to the series. The image of him holding up his hands to control a pack of velociraptors and the overarching story of his bond with the wild raptor Blue is synonymous with “Jurassic World” and gave moviegoers an emotional hook in the series.

We’ll see whether Johansson, Bailey and Ali can deliver anything in “Rebirth” that will make moviegoers want to come back to see them running from big scaly beasts again.