When it comes to evaluating the financial performance of top movies, it isn’t about what a film grosses at the box office. The true tale is told when production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs collide with box office grosses and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV. To get close to that mysterious end of the equation, Deadline is repeating our Most Valuable Blockbuster tournament for 2018, using data culled by seasoned and trusted sources.

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM

UNIVERSAL/AMBLIN

THE FILM



From the moment the Jurassic Park reboot Jurassic World became the second highest-grossing film of 2015 with $1.67 billion worldwide ($652.2 million domestic), a sequel was inevitable. Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow co-wrote the sequel and executive produced, but didn’t take on directing duties because he was focused on Star Wars: Episode IX, a job he would end up leaving. That opened the door for Spanish horror director J.A. Bayona, available when the World War Z sequel stalled, to bring back Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard to run from a new set of prehistoric critters. They managed to retain the PG-13 rating but made the dinosaurs scarier, and moved the bulk of the action from an island to a mansion that ratcheted up a feeling of claustrophobia. They also gave the movie a head start by opening around the world before the U.S. and Canada, in order to sneak in the film before the beginning of soccer’s World Cup.

The results were raptor-ous. The film grossed $420M overseas before opening stateside — en route to a $891.7M foreign gross, with close to a third of that coming from China. In the U.S. and Canada, Fallen Kingdom notched Universal’s second-best opening of all-time with $148M, behind Jurassic World‘s all-time domestic opening record of $208.8M. Fallen Kingdom became the studio’s second highest-grossing film stateside ($417.7M) behind its 2015 predecessor, and third-highest ever worldwide with $1.3B, falling behind only the global tallies of Jurassic World $1.67B and Furious 7‘s $1.5B.

THE BOX SCORE

Here are the costs and revenues as our experts see them:

THE BOTTOM LINE

Fallen Kingdom generated a profit of $235.4M. That pales when compared to the $470M-plus profit of the 2015 version. Participations at $200M on the sequel remained high with EP and Jurassic Park director Steven Spielberg at the front of that line. Global P&A was at $145M, down from Jurassic Park‘s $160M global spend. However, Fallen Kingdom received an extra boost from promo partnerships valued at $185M, which came in at more than double the 2015 film.