The winner

So Jurassic World has bite – breaking all debut-weekend records – and pace – grossing $1bn faster than any other film. Now its stamina will be put to the test. It’s already taken $1.24bn, standing it eighth on the all-time list. But this weekend, its third, saw signs that the blockbuster is, if not flagging exactly, then starting to fall short of the kind of showing needed to make king of the box office James Cameron break into a sweat. After unprecedented US weekends, $54.2m was – the shame! – just the third highest third weekend ever. Which means, with a second successive 49% drop, it is performing more like No 3 all-time film The Avengers (second weekend, -50.3%; 3rd, -46%), rather than the exceptional holds of No 1 film Avatar (second weekend, -1.8%; 3rd, -9.4%).

Similarly, Avatar managed an absurd six consecutive $100+ overseas weekends, and on its current 50% drops abroad, Jurassic World won’t get close.The Chris Pratt blockbuster looks to be in a dustup with The Avengers for third-highest-grossing film ever, which it should seize if the 5 August Japanese release goes to plan. The franchise has serious prehistory there: Japan was the biggest overseas territory for all three past instalments. China is already up to $202m on Jurassic World, so Japan probably won’t have that honour this time; but if Spielberg’s first instalment managed $120m there in 1993, a $150m top-up isn’t out of the question.



Sequel without stuffing

Watch the Ted 2 trailer Guardian

Sequels are tricky, comedy sequels more so. As comedy often relies on the character imprisonment used to generate laughs, they’re more hog-tied by the kind of repetition that can turn audiences off – yet compelled to freshen themselves up with new elements. Ted 2’s $32.9m US debut – though sound enough for an R-rated comedy – suggests it hasn’t got the balance right: the original took $54.4m, so the franchise has failed to grow. Fellow R-rated comedy sequels Beverly Hills Cop 2, The Hangover Part II and 22 Jump Street had elevated openings while ostensibly offering, like Ted 2, more of the same. Perhaps their respective promises to cinemagoers – more live-wire Eddie Murphy racial/class subversion; Thailand; a ratcheting-up of Jump Street meta-movie commentary – were lively enough to sustain interest in those franchises (though it is telling that in the case of Beverly Hills Cop 2 and The Hangover Part II quality eventually outed, and the sequels grossed less than the originals).

Ted 2, on the other hand, obviously didn’t offer sharp enough embellishments, especially against muscular competition from Jurassic World and Inside Out. Paradoxically, perhaps the one-note-joke aspect to Seth MacFarlane’s bong-huffing, profanity-spitting bear was a strength for the first film. The new scenario – in which Ted seeks a sperm donor in order to have a child with his wife Tami-Lynn – arguably introduces a bit too much reality to the setup and fully aerates implausibilities kept amusingly on the fringes first time. Possibly another problem is MacFarlane himself, whose trademark bullish jibing failed to carry A Million Ways to Die in the West last May and – with accusations of racism lingering this time – could be going stale as an audience-puller. In better circumstances, the Family Guy creator could console himself that the usual overseas surge for franchised sequels overseas give him a shot at matching the original’s unexpected $549.4m. But it has also debuted significantly under the first in major territories Russia (Ted: $5.7m; Ted 2: $3.2m), Germany (Ted: $6.6m; Ted 2: $4m) and Australia (Ted: $8.9m; Ted 2: $3.2m). This bear’s in danger of being put to bed.



Yellow peril

It’s only out in 10 territories so far, but I feel reasonably confident saying this: Minions is going over $1bn. The Universal prequel, tracing the yellow-hued lackeys’ progress through tyrannical masterminds through history, is outdoing parent film Despicable Me 2 so far – which took $970.7m in 2013. This week, that meant improved openings in the UK ($16.1m to DM2’s $15.2m), Brazil ($7.2m to DM2’s $3.1m), Poland ($2.2m to $671K) and the Czech Republic ($1.4m to 307K). Judging by the animation-debut records it’s setting in developing economies (Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia), this franchise is firmly dug in globally. And so it should: Kevin, Stuart, Bob and the rest of the dungareed denizens couldn’t be better conceived for frictionless global uptake. Generically cute but designed with almost logo-like succinctness, they come meme-ready; their tantalising, almost-comprehensible gibberish incorporates vocabulary from all over the world; the setup from the Despicable Me films draws on the fun superhero revisionism already road-tested for the mainstream by Pixar’s The Incredibles; the Minions-down-the-ages gambit, hit home with meme-like panache in the trailers, has the kind of universality exploited by the Ice Age franchise. Like the best-laid skulduggery, it’s hard to see how this one can fail. In the two major territories where it has crossed over with Inside Out – Australia and Brazil – it has emerged the victor; if it manages that on 10 July in the US, where the Pixar film scored the fourth biggest ever opening for an animation last week, the tide of yellow burbling will be unstoppable.



Beyond Hollywood

Unconvincing pretexts to shoehorn western actors into oriental settings has been Hollywood’s speciality over the last decade. So it’s heartening to see the Chinese industry – with some Hollywood help, natch – pulling the reverse stunt: Hollywood Adventures, produced by Fast & Furious kingpin Justin Lin, sees a group of Chinese tourists get embroiled in a smuggling ring on a trip to LA. $26m from its Chinese opening put it in fifth place globally – but it actually rates as a disappointment considering the presence of big-league star Vicky Zhao and a $30m budget partly supplied by Beijing Enlight, responsible for 2012’s massive breakout Lost in Thailand. Also taking advantage of the summer blackout on Hollywood films in China was Hong Kong action thriller SPL 2, which brought in another $11m for the ninth worldwide spot. Just beneath, with $8.7m, was Korean naval thriller NLL – Battle of Yeonpyeong, about the skirmish between North and South Korean patrolboats over the “northern limit line” that took place during the 2002 World Cup. Hanging over from last week were Japanese anime outing Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F, still on tour in Latin and South America, and 70s Korean kidnap-thriller The Classified File, in 15th and 16th slots respectively on Rentrak’s chart.



The future

Age of Ultron, in fifth spot behind Furious 7 on the all-time worldwide rankings, heads off to the last-chance saloon – Japan – with $140m to make up. A big ask. Minions and Inside Out continue to grapple in the animation smackdown of the summer, expanding to a handful more places each on their oddly elongated summer rollouts. And Ted 2, also taking the softly-softly approach until late August, adds the Czech Republic, Cambodia, New Zealand and Singapore.



The top item, though, is the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger to Terminating duties in the fifth instalment Genisys – already up and running in 10 territories this week, including franchise-best openings in Singapore and Colombia. Opening proper in 34 other locales – the UK, France, Brazil, Australia, Russia and Mexico among them – the film will be looking to arrest the series’ sliding revenues but carry on spurring the overseas percentage, which had grown to 66.3% for 2009’s Terminator Salvation. James Cameron’s heavy-metal 1991 sequel is the box-office high-water mark: $519.8m (worth $907.6m today). A propos Ted 2 and the business of comedy sequels, Magic Mike XXL might have something to contribute on that score after it opens in just over 20 markets, the US, UK and India included. Channing Tatum and abs are back, but there’s no Matthew McConaughey, and Steven Soderbergh only DoPs pseudonymously – while our early review suggests it has little in the way of new moves.



Next local mouse to play in China while the Hollywood cat is away is Monk Comes Down the Mountain, in which fifth-generation master Chen Kaige does a Zhang Yimou and stewards a big, lavish martial-arts spectacular that will hopefully give international audiences their once-a-decade fix high-class chop-socky and keep the Chinese government happy in the process. With input from Sony/Columbia, who of course started this kind of east-west crossover big business in 2000 with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the domestic teasers suggest this one, with Lost in Thailand’s Wang Baouqiang giving good oaf in the lead, could be as much drunken master as a touch of zen. And not just because it’s in 3D.



Top 10 global box office, 26-28 June

1. Jurassic World, $136.7m from 67 territories. $1.24bn cumulative – 59.6% international; 40.4% US

2. Inside Out, $78.5m from 43 territories. $266.4m cum – 30.6% int; 69.4% US

3. (New) Ted 2, $53.2m from 27 territories – 38.1% int; 61.9% US

4. Minions, $36m from 10 territories. $51.7m cum – 100% int

5. (New) Hollywood Adventures, $26m from three territories – 100% int

6. San Andreas, $15.7m from 69 territories. $439.7m cum – 67.7% int; 32.3% US

7. Spy, $14.2m from 47 territories. $195m cum – 54.7% int; 45.3% US

8. (New) Max, $12.2m from one territory – 100% US

9. SPL 2, $11m from four territories. $72m cum – 100% int

10. (New) NLL – Battle of Yeonpyeong, $8.7m from one territory – 100% int



• Thanks to Rentrak. This week’s figures are based on estimates; all historical figures unadjusted, unless otherwise stated.

