Box Office

We live in times when box office winners are supposed to be big, strong and larger than life. But a week after the small yellow gibberish-spouting creatures of Minions dominated charts in the U.

It was only a year ago that the domestic box office numbers kept going down and pundits were seriously talking of the theatrical experience turning into something reserved for major franchises and for the new crowds of ticket-buyers in China and other territories. But as 2015 has entered into its second half, and after major hits such as Furious 7, Avengers: The Age of Ultron, Pitch Perfect 2 and Jurassic World, we can now safely say that those reports about the imminent demise of the traditional theater were, as Mark Twain would say, greatly exaggerated.

During the 4th of July weekend Americans display their flags, enjoy barbecues, rush to the beach, and they go the movies. The patriotic weekend is actually a very desirable time to open a new picture and to secure the date, and scare away the competition; studios sometimes claim it years in advance.

22 years after Steven Spielberg first introduced us to the wonders of Jurassic Park and 14 years after the third and disappointing installment of the franchise, some feared bringing it back was not going to work. There would not be enough viewers nostalgic of the magic of those early days, they claimed.

This weekend’s top new releases each reprised increasingly recycled genres with varying degrees of success. Insurgent, in which Shailene Woodley plays an exceptionally gifted teenager who is forced to take the weight of the world on her shoulders in order to save her dystopian society from further misery, opened in the United States to a comfortable $54 million.

After three days of close sparring, David Fincher’s provocative adult drama Gone Girl edged out horror spinoff Annabelle to finish first on the domestic charts with a well earned$38 million. Based on Gillian Flynn’s bestselling 2012 book, this cerebral thriller pits husband and wife Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike against each other in a contest which dissects not only their relationship but also the institution of marriage itself as well the inflammatory nature of the media in the United States.

There was no second coming for Johnny Depp’s status as the world’s biggest box office draw, as Transcendence opened on Easter weekend to a disappointing $11. 5 million in 3,455 North American theaters.