“Jurassic World”: Key Reasons It Was a Box Office Monster Video

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Jurassic World stunned the movie business this weekend with its massive $200 million opening.

It’s the second-biggest debut in history and a sign that a franchise that appeared to have run out of gas 14 years ago, when Jurassic Park III petered out with $368.8 million at the global box office, has been reinvigorated.

So how did Universal Pictures, the studio behind the dinosaur thriller, pull off the cinematic comeback? Here are five key ingredients in the summer blockbusters success:

1.) Chris Pratt is a star. Period.

In an era of would-be leading men like Jai Courtney and Garrett Hedlund, Pratt shows what a true movie star looks like. After Guardians of the Galaxy proved he was an actor to watch, with his tongue-in-cheek work as a galactic adventurer drawing comparisons to Harrison Fords Indiana Jones, Jurassic World offers up a second major franchise to stick in his quiver. That’s a feat that only a handful of actors have achieved, putting him in elite company with Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, Sherlock Holmes), Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men The Hunger Games) and Ford himself (the Indiana Jones films, Star Wars). If rumors are true, and Pratt assumes Fords bullwhip in a planned reboot of Indiana Jones, he could score a blockbuster trifecta.

He is the modern action hero Said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. He is funny, he is charming, and he is self-deprecating. I call him Jimmy Stewart in a leather vest. He just has the perfect sensibility for today’s audiences.

But Pratts contributions extended beyond his onscreen work as a velociraptor trainer. He was an indefatigable pitchman for the film. His preemptive Facebook apology for anything he will say during Jurassic Worlds Press tour inspired headlines and showed a deft feel for social media. Even hiccups, like when Pratt stumbled over the meaning of impotent, proved the adage that all publicity is good publicity.

Somebody’s passion projects are about to get a green light. So if Pratt has ever wanted to play a second century fresco painter struggling with gonorrhea or something equally uncommercial, now is the times to make that ask.

2.) Timing is everything.

Jurassic World was shrewdly positioned as the June blockbuster to beat, ceding April to Furious 7 and steering clear of ?Avengers: Age of Ultrons May release. After Tomorrow land flopped over Memorial Day, there was some gum-flapping among box office analysts about whether Universal erred in not putting Jurassic World Over the four-day holiday. In retrospect, it was the perfect move. The box office, which was coming off of three consecutive lackluster weekends, needed to cool down before it could heat up again.

You could see this coming after a number of films that didn’t live up to expectations, Said Jeff Bock, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations. There was just this hunger for a big summer tent pole film.

The studio benefited from timing of another sort. Over the past decade and a half, the fourth Jurassic Park Saw various filmmakers and screenwriters, such as The Departeds  William Monahan and I Robots Alex Proyas, come on board before getting tossed aside after failing to find the right creative direction for the film. The tortured development worked in Jurassic Worlds favor, giving it distance from Jurassic World III, which is generally considered to be the series Nadir and lending the franchise a feeling of freshness.