Three separate movies, Ted 2, Jurassic World and Inside Out, could rack up more than $50m each at the US box office this weekend for the first time ever as Hollywood marches towards what increasingly looks like being a record-breaking 2015.
Experts are predicting a close race for the top spot, with all three films expected to do well. Ted 2 is the sequel to one of 2012’s biggest sleeper hits, though the new instalment has picked up middling reviews for director and star Seth MacFarlane. Jurassic World made $106.6m, the biggest North American second-week gross of all time, last weekend, and has raced to the magic $1bn mark at the global box office in a record 14 days. And Pixar animation Inside Out scored the highest opening of all time for an original movie with a hugely impressive $91.1m haul last time out.
Total US box office figures for June already stand at $920m, according to Hollywood trade bible The Wrap, and the month could yet be the biggest of all time if all three films perform well this weekend. The record is currently held by July, 2011, when Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows drove the total monthly haul to a gargantuan $1.3bn.
The North American box office has increasingly come to resemble something of a sickly creature compared to the rampaging Chinese equivalent, which has seen year-on-year rises for more than a decade: in 2014, total US and Canadian receipts fell to $10.3bn (from $10.9bn in 2013).
But 2015 figures are already at $5.276bn with one weekend to go before the half way mark for the year is reached, suggesting a record annual figure of $11bn could be within reach. Box office shoo-ins Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire part two and James Bond adventure Spectre are still to come before the end of the year.
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