Jurassic World broke all kinds of records when it opened this weekend at box offices across the world. It scored the highest opening weekend ever in America (beating the first Avengers movie) as well as the highest opening weekend internationally (knocking down Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2). All together the film brought in more than 500 million dollars in 48 hours. That’s a lot of eyeballs, and its safe to say that many of those eyeballs belonged to kids.
When the first Jurassic Park movie came out in 1993, the UK film board required it carry a warning for parents about violent and scary content. Spielberg himself said he was not allowing his young sons to see the film, saying the movie was “too intense” for his children, then 8 years-old and younger. Common Sense Media currently recommends the original film for children 12 and up, noting mild bad language and “terrifyingly realistic dinos.”
But despite all the warnings in the world, most of the people in my age group (I was under 10 when the first film came out) saw Jurassic Park in theaters, and I am assuming that most of our young patrons will see Jurassic World well, especially since this week I have fielded more requests for dinosaur books, movies, and games than in all the previous weeks of the year added together! My esteemed colleague Amy Laughlin (@amysaurusrex on Twitter) put together this post to help our patrons access our dino content.
How will you be capitalizing on the dino-mania?
Caitlin McCullough
I started watching Jurassic Park when I was 2 back in 1999, and it was my favorite movie ever. Whenever I wanted to watch it I would say “I want to watch the dinosaurs eat the people.” and either my mom or dad would put it on for me. To this day, it’s still one of my favorite movies, and I’m looking forward to the seventh movie.