Jurassic World in four charts: box office smash grosses almost as much as the GDP of Dominica

Gross revenue from the film's opening weekend was $511 million

Jurassic World could beat Avatar to become the highest-grossing film of all-time (Universal)

Executives at Universal will be celebrating after Jurassic World smashed box office records – bringing gross revenue from its opening weekend to $511 million.

That’s almost the entire GDP of Dominica. (But not quite – that was $516.7 million in 2013, according to the World Bank.

In North America, Jurassic World made $204.6 million, just short of the record for an opening weekend in the region, held by Marvel's The Avengers at $207.4 million in 2012.

The Chinese box-office amounting to half US totals helped push up global revenues. The film topped the box office in 66 countries

It still has some way to go before it joins the list of all-time box-office records.

Paul Dergarabedian, a media analyst at Rentrak, told AFP that Jurassic World was the perfect mix of nostalgia, legacy and quality.

“There are many reasons Jurassic World is eating box office records like a hungry Indominus Rex: the original Jurassic Park was the second coming of Jaws and was for many the film that defined in the psyche their personal definition of the summer movie experience,” Dergarabedian said.

People are nostalgic for the first Jurassic Park, which opened over 20 years ago in 1993, by a treasured director: Steven Spielberg. The film opened on a weekend where there was not a lot of competition and in the run up to its release, NBC was showing the original on television.

Universal Corp’s share price rose on Friday, presumably in anticipation of a big weekend for Jurassic World. It was up 1 per cent to $55.04 on Monday. Universal’s share price is up 24 per cent this year so far.