A still from Jurassic World
Los Angeles:
Roaring back after a two-year absence from theaters, Pixar over the weekend released
Inside Out to exultant reviews - the best of the year so far for any film, according to Metacritic.com - and an enormous $91.1 million in ticket sales.
But the holdover
Jurassic World nonetheless won the box-office derby, ending Pixar's two-decade run of continuous No 1 releases.
Jurassic World (Universal Pictures) took in about $102 million at North American cinemas over the weekend for an 11-day total of $398.2 million, according to Rentrak, which compiles box-office data. Worldwide,
Jurassic World has now taken in $981.3 million, Universal said on Sunday.
Directed by Pete Docter,
Inside Out (Walt Disney Studios) cost at least $300 million to make and market, on par with other Pixar efforts. More was on the line than ticket sales: Following less rapturously received efforts like
Brave and
Monsters University - and a high-profile production delay with an upcoming film,
The Good Dinosaur - the euphoric response to
Inside Out effectively muzzles Pixar's detractors.
Inside Out will most likely be a strong ticket seller in the weeks ahead, in part because of light competition. Studios will release only two major animated movies this summer - the other is
Minions, due July 10 - compared with as many as five in recent summers.
Among other new weekend releases, the low-budget comedic drama
Dope (Open Road Films) took in about $6 million, on the lower end of analyst expectations. After
Dope had its premiere in January at the Sundance Film Festival,
Open Road and a partner paid roughly $7 million for the rights and guaranteed a marketing budget of $15 million, according to Deadline.com.