Jurassic World's box office performance is certainly impressive, but the bigger news is that it was the leader of Hollywood's all-time best domestic box office. Ever. As in, a record-breaking weekend at the movies that brought in north of $262 million. This breaks a nearly six-year record of $259.9 million set back in 2009, led by James Cameron's own record-breaking juggernaut, Avatar.

Now it's important to keep in mind that Jurassic World's monster total accounted for almost 80% of this weekend record while Avatar (in its second week in theaters) tallied 29.1% of the Christmas 2009 weekend box office. The older record was helped in part by sizable debuts of three other movies - including Sherlock Holmes and the Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel - spreading the wealth out a bit. Avatar was still clearly drawing audiences in, but films like The Blind Side and Up in the Air broadened the holiday demographics.

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Image via Universal Pictures

So almost six years later, Jurassic World almost single-handedly sets the record for domestic box office weekends. It did it without the help of any other debuts, without any other movies bringing in massive weekend numbers, and without holiday crowds. Spy and San Andreas, the latter of which has had an incredible worldwide run with more than $300 million in its three weeks, were the only movies in the top 12 to pull more than $10 million this weekend. Adding the box office tallies of the other 11 films together is still less than a third of Jurassic World's debut take. Let that sink in for a second.


Now, if this all sounds rather impressive, and I certainly think it is, let's also take into consideration the other weekends on the all-time domestic list. The record-setting Christmas weekend of 2009 trumped an almost 18-month record, led by The Dark Knight in the summer of 2008, by a little more than $6 million. The 2011 debut of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 nearly toppled that record weekend, as did the fall 2009 debut of The Twilight Saga's New Moon. These are Hollywood history's only domestic box office weekend takes with more than $250 million. And Jurassic World put in over $200 million on its own! Additionally, five of the all-time top 50 domestic box office weekends have occurred this year, with a sixth sitting at 53 ... and we're not even half-way through the year. Man, you guys really like movies! (Via Box Office Mojo)

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