Another Hollywood franchise has lost a bit of its bite.
“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” opened to an estimated $150 million in the U.S. and Canada over the weekend. That is a healthy debut by most measures, but 28% below the massive $208.8 million start for the first “Jurassic World,” which relaunched the 25-year-old dinosaur franchise in 2015.
The new movies, which star Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt, continue the big screen story started with Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” in 1993.
Since debuting two weeks ago in some foreign markets, “Fallen Kingdom” has grossed $561.5 million overseas. Its global total is $711.5 million.
The second “Jurassic World” could surpass $1 billion world-wide, but is unlikely to come close to the $1.67 billion global total of its predecessor.
A number of big-budget cinematic series have, like “Jurassic World,” slowed down at the box office in the past year, reflecting the fierce competition for a relatively stable pool of box-office dollars and audiences’ fickle tastes. Among franchises that have recently seen sequels or spinoffs that grossed significantly less than prior entries are Star Wars, Pitch Perfect, Lego, Pirates of the Caribbean, Cars and Transformers.
In the case of “Fallen Kingdom,” a sequel to a three-year-old film may have been less special to many moviegoers than the launch of “Jurassic World” 14 years after the last series entry, the poorly received “Jurassic Park III.”
“We had realistic but aggressive expectations for this movie and it came in at the high end of them,” said Universal Pictures’ president of domestic distribution, Jim Orr.
The big-budget release from Comcast Corp. -owned Universal posted the fourth-highest opening for any film this year.
It comes just a week after “Incredibles 2,” from Walt Disney Co.’s Pixar Animation Studios, made its debut to $182.7 million. This was the first time ever that movies opened one after another to more than $100 million on nonholiday weekends, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners.
This weekend “Incredibles 2” grossed $80.9 million, bringing its domestic total to $350.4 million. That is already higher than the entire run of “The Incredibles” in 2004.
The other two top openers this year were “Avengers: Infinity War,” with $257.7 million in April, and “Black Panther,” with $202 million in February, both from Disney ’s Marvel Studios.
Reviews for “Fallen Kingdom” were mixed, as they were for “Jurassic World” three years ago. The PG-13 movie drew an array of audiences, including families, despite competition from “Incredibles 2,” said Mr. Orr.
Overseas, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” is doing particularly well in Asian and Latin American countries like China, South Korea and Brazil, where it is roughly matching or exceeding the performance of the original. In Europe, the box office has been behind that of “Jurassic World,” as in the U.S.
Write to Ben Fritz at ben.fritz@wsj.com