'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' Pacing For $133 Million Opening Weekend

Millions of years ago, dinosaurs ruled the earth, and if you're heading to the movies this weekend, you'll find they also rule the box office. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom lands in theaters this weekend and is on pace to snag $133 million domestically.

According to Variety, Thursday night previews of the film took in $15.3 million, putting it well within its estimated $130-150 million expectations. Those preview numbers will be lumped in with the estimated $54 million Friday earnings. Having previously opened overseas, this weekend the film could push past $600 million.

Slated to come in behind the Jurassic World sequel is Incredibles 2, which opened last week and scored the highest opening for an animated film of all time with more than $180 million. Pixar's latest is on track to score $80 million in its second weekend.

The month of May was relatively crowded with blockbuster openings, with Avengers: Infinity War kicking off summer movie season in the last weekend of April before Deadpool 2 and Solo: A Star Wars Story made their debuts. Opening estimations hint that audiences are ready to take in an action-packed spectacle after more character-driven films like Ocean's Eight, Tag, and Hereditary.

Fallen Kingdom's opening is impressive, though, compared to its predecessor, comes up short. In 2015, Jurassic World opened to a staggering $208 million opening domestically, setting the then-record for biggest all-time opening. In the years since, Disney projects have pushed the film to the fourth-highest opening behind Avengers: Infinity War, The Force Awakens, and The Last Jedi. In fact, Jurassic World is the only film in the top 10 highest opening box office weekends ever, with the next non-Disney film being 2011's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 at number 12.

The staggering numbers of the previous film came as a shock to many, especially given how the Jurassic Park series had stagnated over the years. The original 1993 film opened to $47 million domestically on its way to more than a billion worldwide. Four years later, The Lost World toppled the opening weekend numbers of its predecessor with $72 million, though its worldwide grosses plateaued at $618 million. Jurassic Park III stunted the franchise for more than a decade with its $50 million opening and $368 worldwide gross.

Despite sitting at only 71 percent positive reviews on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, Jurassic World went on to snag a whopping $1.6 billion worldwide gross, proving that dinosaurs causing chaos are more effective than critical reviews. Hopefully this holds true for the sequel, which sits at 50 percent positive reviews on the site.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is in theaters now.

Do you think this sequel will be a hit with audiences? Let us know in the comments below!

[H/T Variety]