Jurassic World Smashes June Opening Day Record with $83 Million

It was looking pretty good on Friday that Universal Pictures’ Jurassic World would be beating the previous June opening weekend record set by Man of Steel when it reported $18.5 million just from Thursday previews, but business was so insane on Friday that it’s now being reported that the Chris Pratt-starring blockbuster has grossed an estimated $82.8 million in 4,273 theaters.

That’s just over $19,000 per theater and it would make it the third-highest opening and single day ever after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2‘s $91.1 million and Avengers: Age of Ultron‘ $84.4 million, putting it ahead of Marvel’s The Avengers $80 million back in 2012. The latter currently holds the opening weekend record with $207.4 million.

That puts it well ahead of the previous June opening and single day record held by The Twilight Saga: Eclipse with $68.5 million from June 30, 2010 and also ahead of the $75.7 million opening day for The Dark Knight Rises, which ended up with $160.9 million in its opening weekend in 2012.

Based on the Thursday numbers, we originally were thinking Jurassic World would end up with $130 million, but considering how much bigger the movie was on Friday, it’s now looking closer to $180 million or even more! Could it make a play for the $200 million plus opening of Avengers? It’s become one of those insane box office phenoms that only come about once every couple of years and apparently everybody is going out to see Universal Pictures’ revived franchise. With it already scoring an “A” CinemaScore, the sky is the limit for Jurassic World right now.

Check back on Sunday for the full box office report to see how it fared.