MINIONS Scores Second Biggest Animated Opening Weekend of All Time; JURASSIC WORLD Closing In on $600M

For the past few months, the yellow-hued, gibberish-speaking Minions have been everywhere. TV commercials, the front page of the Los Angeles Times, McDonalds Happy Meals — it was impossible to escape these guys. The marketing effort paid off as moviegoers showed up in near record numbers for Minions' opening weekend.

The movie opened to $115.2 million. Not only did that easily give Minions the No. 1 spot, but it also gave the film the No. 2 spot on the all-time list for animated opening weekends. Minions didn't pass Shrek the Third's $121.6 million but it did trump Toy Story 3's $110.3 million. It was also the best opening weekend for the Despicable Me franchise, continuing the series' upward trend. The original Despicable Me opened to $56.4 million in 2010 and was followed by Despicable Me 2's $83.5 million in 2013.

Universal Pictures is having an amazing year thanks to Minions, Jurassic World and Furious 7. All three movies cracked $100 million their opening weekends (with Jurassic World breaking $200 million).

Let's talk about Jurassic World. The movie added $18.1 million this weekend, which brings the latest Jurassic Park movie's domestic total up to $590.6 million. Jurassic World will pass $600 million domestically this week, becoming only the fourth film to ever accomplish that feat. The movie now has The Avengers ($623.4 million), Titanic ($658.7 million) and Avatar in its sites ($760.5 million). The Avengers and Titanic are reasonable targets for Jurassic World but Avatar is probably out of its reach.