1993’s Jurassic Park stomps back to the top of the box office

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

2020 has been a crazy year so it should come as no surprise that a film released 27 years ago actually topped the box office over the weekend. Steven Spielberg's JURASSIC PARK, released 27 years ago, was number one at the box office for the fourth time in its release history this past weekend. Most of the business was driven by drive-ins and other hard-top theaters that have chosen to reopen.

JURASSIC PARK grossed $517,600 at 230 sites, dethroning last week's champ, THE INVISIBLE MAN. This is all a win-win for Universal Pictures since they're the studio behind both films and they had a reason to celebrate another classic catalog title as JAWS landed in second place with a gross of $516,300. You can tell that these catalog titles are enticing for some moviegoers because the grosses for JURASSIC PARK and JAWS were an improvement over last week's numbers for first and second place which had THE INVISIBLE MAN and TROLLS WORLD TOUR grossing $383,000 and $275,700 respectively.

These numbers for JURASSIC PARK are a far cry from the money the film was earning during its original run but it's still a nice little bonus for Universal Pictures. JURASSIC PARK originally held the top spot at the box office for its first three weekends of release following its June 11, 1993 opening which came in at $47 million. The film was reissued in 2013 over the April 5-7 weekend and opened to $18.6 million in fourth place. The reissue added $45.3 million to the film's domestic gross which brought it to $404.3 million.

JURASSIC PARK follows a pragmatic paleontologist that is visiting an almost complete theme park who is tasked with protecting a couple of kids after a power failure causes the park's cloned dinosaurs to run loose. The film was followed by 1997's THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK and 2001's JURASSIC PARK III. The franchise was given a fresh new life in 2015 with the release of JURASSIC WORLD which was followed by JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM in 2018. JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION is set to return to filming in July in the UK after being halted due to COVID-19.

Did YOU check out JURASSIC PARK this weekend? Have YOU explored other classic catalog titles are your local drive-in?