Reviews for the Jurassic franchise continue to go splat, but theaters know they have a big event film to fill their venues every time one opens. Theaters had a lot to be thankful for this year, even before they got the benefits of the July 4th holiday. Grosses have been up from 2024 in four of the six months, and overall the box office is up 160% from last year through June. We now head into month seven looking for a fourth straight billion-dollar July with dinosaurs and a pair of superhero films hoping to lead the way. Did the Rebirth of Jurassic World lead by example this weekend?
King of the Crop: Jurassic World Rebirth Posts a Ferocious $91.5 Million Debut
July 2025 welcomes Jurassic World: Rebirth as its inaugural title. The seventh film in the 32-year franchise is here to push it into $6 billion territory this weekend, with surely some hopes of reaching $7 billion by the end of its run. Those dreams may be a little grand, as the World films have seen a steady decline in box office from film to film (from $1.67 billion to $1.31 billion to $1.001 billion).
Gareth Edwards, who has made a solid career out of rebooting or retooling franchises from Godzilla to Star Wars, saw Rebirth make $30.5 million on Wednesday without advance previews, collect another $91.5 million over the weekend, and finish its first five days with $147.3 million. That is the lowest start to date for any of the Jurassic World pictures, which started in 2015 with $258.4 million in its first five days. Fallen Kingdom began with $181.1 million, and Dominion wasn’t far behind with $172.5 million. Rebirth is much further behind, and by next week, it could already rank behind Spielberg’s original in 1993, which dropped just 18.2% to a second weekend of $38.4 million.
All of this potential disappointment is merely academic for the time being, though, as the $180 million-budgeted film is no doubt still going to be a huge success for Universal. They may want to take better care of a franchise which will have made nearly as much in seven films as their precious Fast & Furious films have done in 11. Only two of the Jurassic films — Park in ‘93 and World in 2015 — were Fresh on the Tomatometer, while the last three World films earned Rotten scores of 47%, 31%, and now 51%. Those would be the three lowest if not for Joe Johnston’s 90-minute Jurassic Park III getting a 49%.
While its global total already sits over $300 million ($318 million to be precise, the 63rd-best five-day total in history), there is no guarantee that Rebirth will reach that number domestically. Of the 52 films that have opened between $120-165 million, 16 came up shy of the $300 million milestone, and Rebirth will have to contend with James Gunn’s Superman next week. In fact, its second-weekend and 10-day numbers may end up close to those of Zack Snyder’s own Man of Steel, which had a second weekend haul of $41.2 million and $219 million after 12 days. Man of Steel also happens to be on that list of 16 mentioned above.
When all is said and done, Jurassic World Rebirth should have no issue making a substantial profit. But how much longer can the franchise keep it up?
Tales of the top 10: F1 Drops into Second, Lilo & Stitch Surpasses Minecraft Worldwide
Last week we did a deep dive into the potential for F1: The Movie. Could it overcome the numbers of its conservatively announced budget and become the success that has not been associated with Apple Films on the financial side, if not the artistic? After a lot of excitement for the studio’s biggest opening ever, how is the film measuring up through the holiday?
After five days, the film was up to $72.6 million, behind the grosses of both Thunderbolts* and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which each were in the $86 million range. After a second weekend of $26 million, F1’s 10-day haul is $109.5 million. That is still behind both the Marvel movie and the Cruise flick, which were at $127.7 million and $122.5 million, respectively.
We focus on those two movies because Thunderbolts* came up short of $200 million and Mission: Impossible, while making a late run at it, has benefited from some decent drops through June. F1’s weekend is lower than M:I’s $27.2 million and Bolts’ $32.3 million second weekends. After Bolts’ third weekend, M:I began overtaking it weekend-to-weekend. If F1 had bested The Final Reckoning’s second go, it could have been something, but as of now, it’s $13 million behind it. The domestic finish right now is looking to end up in the $160-170 million range. F1 is on the low end of films that reached $100 million in nine days sharp. Plus, all of the films to reach $200 million were rated “PG” or “G” (i.e. Kung Fu Panda, Cars, Night at the Museum, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Mufasa: The Lion King, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, and Ratatouille).
But this was always a film dependent on the international popularity of the sport, and on the global side, F1 fell just 28% to bring that total to $184 million. It’s going to need to become Brad Pitt’s third film to hit $300 million outside domestic for the conversation to even lean towards success. Globally the film is at $293 million to make it the ninth-highest grossing film of the year, but every week matters before a victory lap can be taken on the reported $200 million production.
Third place goes to one of the definite successes of the year in How To Train Your Dragon. Another $11 million in its fourth week gives it $224 million after 24 days. That puts it right in the vicinity of Transformers: Age of Extinction, which had a $9.8 million fourth weekend to drive its total to $227 million. That pace suggests $250-260 million is still very much in play. Globally the film is over $516 million, and these figures suggest it is also headed to pass Mission: Impossible’s global gross and likely make it past $600 million with a sequel on the way.
Far less successful is Disney/Pixar’s Elio which fell to $5.7 million in just its third week. Anyone expecting this to be another Elemental revival should not hold their breath. Taking 17 days to make $55 million is unheard of for a Pixar film. It’s a weaker third weekend than even Lightyear ($6.4 million), which fell hard after a $50 million opening. Maybe you never thought you would see a Pixar movie compared to a Tyler Perry film, but Madea’s Witness Protection had a $5.58 million third weekend and a 17-day total of $55.6 million. Elio should eventually beat it, but we’re talking about a landing around just the $70 million region, if that. It has made just $96 million worldwide, making it one of the big misses of the year.
Disney can at least counterbalance that with the success of Lilo & Stitch, which is keeping its hope alive of besting A Minecraft Movie’s $423.9 million to be the top domestic-grossing film of the year. Another $3.8 million this weekend put it at $408.5 million. Minecraft’s seventh weekend was $5.9 million, and it had a total of $416.7 million. Audiences then made the switch to Stitch over Memorial Day weekend, and that is when Minecraft’s grosses began to trail off seriously. We’re still a couple weeks away from Smurfs, and that is unlikely to have the kind of serious impact that Minecraft was subjected to. Don’t count Lilo & Stitch entirely out just yet. The film has already won the global battle, passing Minecraft’s $954.9 million with its own $972 million.
Down to sixth place in its third weekend is Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later. Its $4.6 million was enough to cross $60 million domestic, which puts it ahead of the pace of The Purge ($59.6 million 17-day haul, $3.5 million third weekend). Next week’s drop could be the difference between getting over $70 million or coming in slightly below it. Its global total is over $125 million.
M3GAN 2.0 dropped to $3.8 million in its second weekend for a miniscule total of $18.5 million in 10 days. Universal and Blumhouse are certainly regretting they slotted this in the summer after the likes of Final Destination: Bloodlines and 28 Years Later. The sequel looks like it won’t even make a third of the $180 million global haul of the first film.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning takes on a little greater resonance in its later days as we continue to track those F1 numbers. Can the last chapter of the franchise actually find its way to $200 million? It has been doing its damndest the past four weeks, consistently dropping less than 40%. Now with another $2.8 million driving its total to $191.1 million, is it too late to mount a final run to the milestone? The odds are still against it. Captain America: Brave New World was at $196.6 million after its seventh weekend of $2.92 million earlier this year, and it just barely crossed the $200 million threshold. The big release next week is going to knock a lot of films back, and this final chapter is headed for somewhere around $195 million and is currently at $576 million globally.
Closing out the top ten this week is Celine Song’s Materialists with $1.3 million, bringing its total to $33.5 million. It needs to reach $35.08 million to become the seventh-highest grossing domestic release in A24 history. It has made nearly three times as much as Song’s debut, Past Lives. Finally, Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap, in theaters for just three days with a 4K Restoration in advance of a long-awaited sequel in September, made $932,000. And that was just on Saturday and Sunday. It was enough to avoid 11th place, although that would have been poetic.
On the Vine: It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s James Gunn’s Superman
James Gunn officially fires his first shot as the leader of DC when Superman hits theaters. Will it become the film that ultimately leads the summer? How will the numbers look compared to the best of the former DCU? No one else is daring to go up against the film, and we shall soon see how critics respond to it. The consensus has not been positive to a Superman film since the attempted Bryan Singer reboot Superman Returns in 2006.
Full List of Box Office Results: July 4-6, 2025
- Jurassic World: Rebirth – $91.5 million ($147.3 million total)
- F1: The Movie – $26.0 million ($109.5 million total)
- How To Train Your Dragon – $11.0 million ($224.0 million total)
- Elio – $5.7 million ($55.0 million total)
- 28 Years Later – $4.6 million ($60.2 million total)
- Lilo & Stitch – $3.8 million ($408.5 million total)
- M3GAN 2.0 – $3.8 million ($18.5 million total)
- Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning – $2.7 million ($191.1 million total)
- Materialists – $1.3 million ($33.5 million total)
- This Is Spinal Tap (re-release) – $932,000 ($932,000 total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast.
Thumbnail image by ©Universal Pictures
